Harry Potter and the Staff of Cybele
by Mystiq
Summary: Year seven. A haunting dream, two near deaths, Voldemort resuming terror, Cho staying at Privet Drive, Dudley gets a Hogwarts letter, deaths of people near Harry and having all eyes turned on him... And he only thinks of two people the entire time, hoping
1. Godric's Hollow

. H . A . R . R . Y . . . P . O . T . T . E . R .

. A N D . T H E . S T A F F . O F . C Y B E L E .

SUMMARY:

Thantanos Quirrel escapes with the Book of Memories. Lord Voldemort resumes his reign of mass murder, spreading terror to Muggle and wizard alike.

During the first month of summer vacation, Harry frequently wakes up sweating, having relived the night of his parents' murder. Aunt Marge takes up residence at Privet Drive, fearing for her own life back at her old house. With nothing more than a talking staff to talk for half the summer, Harry crushes under pressure from the dream, Aunt Marge and everything else. He gets the insane idea of asking Cho Chang to stay with him at Privet Drive. She agrees. They laugh together when Dudley gets a letter from Hogwarts and nearly die together when two accidents nearly take the life of Oliver Wood and Cho herself. It all stays picture perfect after that until the death of someone close to Harry turns all eyes on him. Of course, through all of this, that dream, the Dursley dream, back at Privet Drive, stays engraved in his head.

FOREWARD:

Sequel to Harry Potter and the Book of Memories

CHAPTER INDEX

-1. Godric's Hollow  
-2. Midnight Worry  
-3. The Offer  
-4. The Latent Wizard  
-5. Cho's Arrival  
-6. Preparations  
-7. Vacation From Privet Drive  
-8. Fire Quidditch  
-9. The Legend Of The Scar  
-10. Aunt Marge Finds Out  
-11. The Truth Comes Out  
-12. Muggles In Diagon Alley  
-13. A Sorting Blunder  
-14. Ask Hagrid  
-15. The Theft  
-16. A Letter From Sirius  
-17. Comeuppance  
-18. Cloak Stain  
-19. Cursed With Worry  
-20. The Explicatrix  
-21. The Demiguise  
-22. Shplowmp  
-23. Beauxbatons And Durmstrang  
-24. The Goblet Of Fire  
-25. Test Of Moods  
-26. The Weighing Of The Wands  
-27. Peeves  
-28. The First Task  
-29. The First Test  
-30. Getting A Clue  
-31. One Peaceful Night  
-32. The Hogsmeade Incident  
-33. The Anger Spell  
-34. A Rash Decision  
-35. Animus Speculum  
-36. Laurence Patrick Hayden  
-37. The Hand Of Glory  
-38. Losing Friends Again  
-39. The Second Test  
-40. The Mystery Girl Again  
-41. The Second Task  
-42. The Shovel And Grave Theory  
-43. The Second Task  
-44. The Worst Day  
-45. Serious and For the Future  
-46. The Trial

Not all chapters available. Those included have an asterisk ().

Update: November 21st, 2005:  
Yes, I know it's been a long time. :( I really can't explain why it's taking so long, other than my perceived time for writing has drastically reduced, taken up by gaming. My desire to write hasn't changed, so it's not like I don't want to do it. Chapter 46 is well under way being written. This fic will get finished some day. I don't think it'll hit past chapter 50, so it is almost done. Chapter 46 and on will move very fast just because the story begins to unwind itself after all that's happened.

Update: July 18th, 2004:

I can't take it anymore; I've uploaded a large number of chapters. I've done this because I don't think I'll be modifying anything as I go on and I really, really hate to see people think I've left this fic for dead.

Update: January 3rd, 2004:

All right, sue me. After a long hiatus, there's another update. I'm sorry people, heh. I have from chapter 1 to 44 of an unknown number written but I'm just not uploading them for story continuity reasons. I am still determined to finish this series because the ending has to be known.

Update: June 8th, 2003:

There will be a 5th story in this series entitled Harry Potter and the Black Dream. The opening is already written. :) I had planned to finish Staff of Cybele before The Order of the Phoenix's release but that's not going to happen due to circumstances out of my control.

- - - R E A D T H I S - - -

WARNING: This story is being uploaded without being finished. This means the following: BY READING THIS YOU AGREE TO THE FACT THAT ENTIRE CHAPTERS MAY GET REMOVED/REPLACED/MODIFIED COMPLETELY. EVENTS MAY CHANGE ENTIRELY AND THE PLOT MAY EVEN BE ENTIRELY JUNKED. This may or may not happen but by reading this, you agree to severe changes to the story.

- - - R E A D T H I S - - -

Chapter 1: GODRIC'S HOLLOW

There stood on the beautiful street a lone house. Not many people who lived on this beautiful street, Tradus Street, knew that the inhabitants were... well, wizards. Still fewer knew what they were doing with the lights on in their bedroom at four in the morning. No, the two wizards living in number seven, Tradus Street, the Potters, had led a partially secret life, hiding their doings from the wizarding world as a whole. They didn't want... him... to find out, to know what they had discovered. They only did it because they couldn't stand it anymore. If they couldn't get rid of him, like so many wizards and witches wanted to, at the very least, they could say they tried. Only their closest friends knew they were doing something but they wouldn't say what... And so after a time, their friends gave up on ever finding out and forgot about it altogether.

They knew he would find out but they did try their best to keep it from him. It was their way, their way of saying to him, "We're putting you on a long vacation and we just hope you don't come back. Good riddance to bad rubbish."

The him that they continually spoke of was none other than Lord Voldemort, the most feared wizard of the age, though not the most powerful. No, the title of most powerful belonged to Albus Dumbledore, likely-to-be headmaster of Hogwarts School of Withcraft and Wizardry. The Potters, of course, didn't fear him, they just had an extra strong feeling of dislike aimed squarely at his heart -- if that beating thing in his chest could be called a heart...

Mr. Potter came from a long line of pureblood wizards. Each and every Potter, since even before the first century, was a witch or wizard, and very adept witches and wizards they were.

Mrs. Potter was an unlikely witch. Her family, from as far as she knew, were Muggles: not a drop of magical blood in them. Mrs. Potter's sister, one Petunia Evans, who married a man named Vernon Dursley, hated her sister dearly. According to Petunia, Mrs. Potter was a freak... but she was no freak, she was a loyal wife and an excellent mother. Petunia acted like she never had a sister, not knowing that her sisterhood -- and her motherhood -- would soon be tested.

This school though, this Hogwarts, was a quaint school, though certainly not little. At Hogwarts, they taught all who went there, if they had even the littlest bit of magic abiliy, the fascinating art of magic. Albus taught Transfiguration there for a time, before succeeding the previous headmaster, Armando Dippet.

Lily Evans and James Potter had met at Hogwarts and fallen in love since their first encounter. Lily had been helping her friend's friend, James, with his homework. Secretly, they had started to like each other but never voiced it to the other until their third year. Everyone knew -- both of them were popular with teacher and student alike and you just couldn't hide the fact that they both went red in the other's presence.

James had been doing other things and it kept him quite busy. One of his friends, one Remus J. Lupin was a werewolf. Remus never told James this, but James and Sirius Black, James' absolute best friend, had figured it out. Where was Remus going once a month? This part was a dead giveaway, James thought. James and Sirius, both being quite the adept little wizards, found it very easy to figure out.

James had since been trying to learn to become an Animagus. They reasoned that, while in an animal form, the werewolf form of Remus would be less inclined to hurt them. So for several years, James, Sirius and their other friend, Peter Pettigrew trained themselves in secrecy to become Animagi, wizards who could change into animals.

To the dismay of one student by the name of Severus Snape, James became a very good Quidditch Chaser, a sport which everyone in the wizarding world followed. Severus detested James and James knew this very well, though he didn't care much. It wasn't until Sirius had told Severus how to get to the place where Remus transforms into a werewolf in safety that James stepped in and saved Sirius' life. Had Severus gotten there, Remus would have killed him. Severus never forgave James, the boy whom he hated a lot, for saving his life and Severus would carry this grudge on James' son, for Severus would become a teacher at Hogwarts.

Lily had been practicing one of her own joys, the magic of healing. She was quick with a Charm, Summoning and Fidelius alike, and very adept at healing wounds. She so much enjoyed serving detention with Madam Poppy Pomfrey, the school nurse, that the headmaster had to find new ways to make students serve detention. The caretaker suggested hanging students by their ankles in the dungeons and Lily quickly stopped causing trouble.

Lily, James, Sirius, Peter and Remus roamed the halls of Hogwarts joyfully, not knowing that what would happen soon after the birth of James and Lily's son would tear the family apart but would also set peace throughout the entire wizarding world. But they didn't have time to worry about the future, they had to worry about now, for Lord Voldemort was gaining power steadily, terrorizing Muggle and wizard alike.

All through their years at Hogwarts, the likely to be married James and Lily had been strong to voice their loyalty to Albus Dumbledore, who was a wizard that Lord Voldemort feared and, unfortunately, the only one that he feared. Lord Voldemort knew when he met his match and if he was to become the strongest wizard to walk the planet, he would have to fight Albus some other day.

James and Lily married straight out of their seventh year at Hogwarts and Lily was more than happy to announce she was pregnant only months after leaving. At the time, they had been living as known wizards, not knowing that they would soon be attempting their own method of bringing Lord Voldemort down... or were they just keeping better quiet about it? No, the happy couple, both of age seventeen, were living in a different place before they had to go into hiding. Not Tradus Street but Alapert Lane, number sixteen Alapert Lane, in Little Whinging, Surrey. Lily lived near Petunia for a time but times grew troublesome as Lord Voldemort grew ever stronger.

Muggle after muggle and witch after wizard continued to disappear or be killed by Lord Voldemort and his followers, the Death Eaters. There was little to celebrate. Holidays were like a weekend because even Lord Voldemort needed to rest. One of the many problems with putting Lord Voldemort out of power was that he dabbled in magic himself. He tried to protect himself against mortality, a feat which only the famous alchemist and partner of Albus Dumbledore had achieved: Nicolas Flamel. Nicolas had created what the study of ancient alchemy was most interested in: the Philosopher's Stone. This stone, a ruby colored, small stone, could make the Elixir of Life, which makes it's drinker immortal and can also transform any metal into pure gold. Of course, Lord Voldemort had never had something so powerful but he sure wished he did.

Lord Voldemort was always the topic of discussion when topics were scarce, except they didn't call him Lord Voldemort. No, they didn't name him. Instead, he was referred to as "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" for they feared He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named would be lurking around the corner, hiding in their midst, ready to find his next victim. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did not even have a purpose, he did what he did for fun. Naturally, the Potters referred to him as Lord Voldemort until their dying day for they never feared him, they simply loathed him.

The Potters, on the thirty-first of July, 1980, had their beloved son. They named him Harry and he would be their most prized possession even against their magnificent, ancient, magical artifacts. But even as they continued their studies, they could no longer live in Little Whinging. They had spies and they knew that Lord Voldemort would soon find out what they had been doing and they had to hide. And besides the fact, Lord Voldemort wanted to find them for other reasons as well.

And so on the twenty-fourth of October, 1981, they moved to Godric's Hollow, named after Godric Gryffindor, one of the founders of Hogwarts and a very famous wizard indeed. Lily had performed the Fidelius Charm on that same night, a charm that keeps a secret hidden inside a person, that person being referred to as a Secret Keeper. The secret can never be revealed unless the Secret Keeper willingly gives it up. The secret that was to be kept was to be their location. Lord Voldemort could look into their house and see nothing but walls and lights.

The Potters wanted their best friend, Sirius Black, to be Secret Keeper but at the last moment, Sirius, who would give his own life to save the Potters, his best friends, insisted Peter be the Secret Keeper. No one but Peter, Sirius and the Potters knew about this change and tragically, no one but Peter knew that Peter had become a servant to Lord Voldemort. It was on Halloween that Peter had told Voldemort where the Potters were, breaking the Fidelius Charm and Lord Voldemort was free to find them...

"I'll be right there!" James called.

There had been a knock on their door. He walked quickly downstairs from his son's bedroom where he and Lily had just been tending to their son to the front door. James opened the door... and he nearly lost his voice.

"Good afternoon!" said the wizard standing in front of him.

Those cold, red eyes, the slits for nostrils and the black cloak. There was no mistaking the owner...

"Lily," James screamed immediately, "take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off --"

"So you think it's all in good fun?" said Lord Voldemort. "I just have a little business and then I must be going."

"No!" James screamed, pulling out his wand. "You leave us alone!"

"Such bravery, standing up to your Dark Lord!" taunted Lord Voldemort. "Move aside, fool," said Lord Voldemort impatiently, "I've got places to be."

Lord Voldemort put out a cold hand and shoved James aside but James was not afraid, there was fire in this wizard's eyes. He knew what Lord Voldemort wanted and he would not let the Dark wizard get it without a fight. James pulled out his wand, a tool he kept with him at all times.

"Stupefy!" cried James, pointing his only weapon at Lord Voldemort. The spell had no effect aside from pushing Lord Voldemort forward a few feet.

"Pitiful wizard," said Lord Voldemort softly.

In Lord Voldemort's stumbling movements, James had run around to Lord Voldemort's front, yelled "Fortitudinus," his own wand pointed at himself. His arms and legs suddenly grew more muscular and he simply punched the Dark Lord.

"Meddlesome fool," said Lord Voldemort, grabbing James' hand. He pulled out his own wand but didn't expect James to kick him in the stomach. James fell on the ground, reaching for his wand once again.

"Expelliarmus!" shouted James. Lord Voldemort's wand flew out of his hand, sending the Dark Lord crashing into a wall but this merely made him angry.

"Accio," he said lazily and his wand flew into his hand. "Avada Kedavra!" he then cried, pointing his wand at James.

There was a flash of green light, a scream of pain and James Potter was dead before he hit the floor. Lord Voldemort could hear the cries of Lily Potter at the top of the staircase. He continued his journey and went up the stairs.

"I'm coming, Lily!" shouted Voldemort as he followed her crying to the room where Harry lay. "Just give the boy to me and stay out of it!"

He turned a corner and standing in a room was Lily Potter, her baby son in her arms.

"Me! No, please, take me instead!" she pleaded.

"STAND ASIDE, GIRL!" roared Lord Voldemort. "OR YOU WILL DIE, TOO!"

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" she cried, covering up her precious son. She leaned over her son's bed, her back to the Dark Lord.

"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside, now..."

"Why him?" she cried pleadingly, tears leaking down her face. "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead --"

"Fine, then," said Lord Voldemort impatiently. "Avada Kedavra!" he shouted, pointing his wand at Lily Potter. A jet of green light bursted from the tip of his wand and hit Lily Potter. She, too, died before she hit the ground.

Laying on the bed in front of Voldemort was the baby boy named Harry Potter.

"Such a long time," said Lord Voldemort, now rounding on the defenseless boy in front of him, "it's about time." He raised his wand, playing with the baby's hair and stopped, pointing it at the boy's forehead. "Avada Kedavra!" he shouted once more.

Another jet of green light shot out of his wand and filled the room but before it hit it's target, the seventeen year old Harry Potter woke up, startled, in a cold sweat, letting out a muffled shriek of fright. 


	2. Midnight Worry

Chapter 2: MIDNIGHT WORRY  
  
He had had this dream many times before ever since he finished his sixth year at the school named Hogwarts and returned to number four, Privet Drive with his mother's sister, Petunia Dursley. Harry was laying in his bed on the second floor of the house. Uncle Vernon's snores echoed up the hall to his room and Harry sat up. Every time he had this dream it made his heart sink below the Earth's core and his pulse raise so fast, his heart beat so hard he felt his chest pulsating. The one thing he feared above all was that the occasional scream he gave when he woke up would wake someone else up. The thought about what the Durlseys would say if they repeatedly woke up from Harry screaming...  
  
Perhaps what worried him most was the lightning shaped scar on his forehead which burned dully. This was a sign that Lord Voldemort was out there, biding his time. He had failed to kill Harry several times since that night and grew angrier with each failure. Harry knew his hopes were growing thin but he had continually gotten better at defending himself and he had gotten lucky several times. But just thinking about it made Harry feel like an ice cube had slid down his mouth and into his stomach. He'd rather not have to worry about it. He'd rather he still had his parents and that he was living anywhere but here.  
  
Just a few months ago, one of Lord Voldemort's supporters had attempted to kill him again -- something he was getting, quite tragically, used to -- but thanks to the Staff of Cybele, which was sitting on top of his dresser, he had been saved. This staff was very odd. It was created by a woman named Cybele, who named the staff Raides. The name had since been lost in the several thousand years in the staff's disappearance, Harry thought, and so it was simply referred to as the Staff of Cybele. Harry and two of his best friends, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley found out that the staff was magicaly sealed away in a book and they had found out how to get the staff out of it. Harry was allowed to keep this staff as only a descendent of an order of wizards several thousand years old, referred to as ancients, could control it. His dad, Harry supposed, was the side of the family where this came from.  
  
Harry stood up from his bed and walked, fully awake from having had the dream once again, to his round glasses first, putting them on, then to the staff and grabbed it. At once, it sprang to life. The Staff of Cybele was a seven foot tall staff, with a lion's body and head, both of which were golden. The staff was no more than two inches thick and looked oddly out of proportion but still magnificent. The fur on the tail went from golden to scarlet from top to bottom. The lion's jaw held a scarlet crystal which glowed a soft gold when alive. The fur on the body was real, soft and warm to the touch but perhaps most interesting to Harry was that the tail wagged merrily when he held it, like it was happy to be with him. And, it could talk. Harry's aunt, uncle and cousin were most horrified when they first saw it speaking.  
  
"Had the dream again, eh?" Raides, the staff, asked Harry. It's voice was a deep growl but kind all the same. The crystal disappeared from the mouth and it turned it's head to look at him. Harry craned his head to look at the staff and nodded weakly. Raides understood.  
  
Harry had been talking to his staff, which had turned out to be a good friend, ever since he first had this dream, the very same week he got home -- or at least the place where he stayed during his miserable summer vacations. He never referred to it as home. There was only one time it was ever close to a home to Harry and that was when his godfather, Sirius, had to stay with him at Privet Drive due to outstanding circumstances. Aunt Petunia hated everything to do with Harry's mom and, in turn, hated everything to do with Harry. After he got home from his first year at Hogwarts, his aunt and uncle saw fit to lock his owl, Hedwig, in his old bedroom, the cupboard under the stairs. He only moved out of this claustrophobic room because when Hogwarts began to try to contact Harry to tell him that he was accepted at Hogwarts, his aunt and uncle thought they would stop getting letter after identical letter if they moved him. They never allowed Harry to open their letters. It was their belief they were being watched and if they treated Harry better, the letters would stop. Even so, they came by the hundreds one fateful afternoon. Eventually, Rubeus Hagrid, a giant, twice as tall as the average man, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, had come personally... much to the dismay of the Dursleys.  
  
"Why am I having this dream?" Harry asked, receeding back to his bed. He sat on it, staring blankly at the door to his room, wiping a tear that had streamed down his cheek.  
  
"You have dreams that can tell you the future, you say?" Raides asked. "It's possible they're working backwards... and since you've been thinking about it..."  
  
"Well, not the future. They show me Voldemort and what he's doing. Someone said this stupid scar" -- he pointed to it -- "connects me with him somehow. I don't know what they are," Harry said angrily.  
  
Harry took a deep breath and sighed heavily. He wouldn't be thinking about it but he had thought that his godfather had, too, died this past year. It was only when he overheard a conversation did he learn that it was possible to revive Sirius. The way to do it was the Staff of Cybele.  
  
Sirius was Harry's father figure. Last summer, Sirius had brought the Dursleys and Harry into the same room. The conversation that followed made for a very strange scene. Harry had never bothered to talk to the Dursleys about his problems in the wizarding world and he had proof they didn't care during that conversation.  
  
"I heard someone say that you can reawaken the dead," Harry started slowly, his voice a lot softer. "Is there... is there any truth to that?"  
  
"Sadly, no."  
  
Harry put the staff on his bed and looked away from it, heart-broken. He knew the answer before he asked it, he just wanted it to come right from the source. There was one good thing about having a staff that could talk: he didn't have to resort to speaking only to his hateful cousin, Dudley. Although, it looked like Dudley would never speak to Harry ever again after Raides had told Dudley that he needed to lose about fifty pounds.  
  
"Your scar still hurting?" asked Raides.  
  
"No, not anymore," Harry told it.  
  
And then Raides did something Harry never saw it do before. It rolled onto the floor, hitting with a soft thud. Before his eyes, the body of the staff thickened, the tail growing slightly longer. The head became bigger and the fur, fuller. In no time at all, the staff had changed into a real, seven foot long lion with golden fur on it's head and body, changing to scarlet as it approached the tail.  
  
"Ah," it growled, "I haven't done that for such a long time." Harry stared. "No need to look so alarmed," it said, noting Harry's face.  
  
There was reason enough to stare, Harry thought, because there was a seven foot long lion on the floor of his room. Some of those teeth were as long as Harry's hand.  
  
"Come on, I'm not savage!" it told him, jumping up onto his bed, which make the entire room shake. It cuddled up next to him, it's tail sticking up in the air.  
  
"It's just -- just that I dont think I've ever seen -- seen a staff change into a - a lion..." Harry stammered. "How is it that you can talk, anyway?"  
  
"Magic," said Raides. "My creator put a bit of her personality into me."  
  
"So - so I can refer to you as her instead of it?" Harry asked cautiously.  
  
Raides laughed (though quietly, because even she didn't want Uncle Vernon to wake up) and said, "Yes, and calm yourself. I'm not going to hurt you. Now, back to your scar. I'm nothing to fret over, that thing is," she added, pointing her tail at the scar on Harry's forehead.  
  
It looked so absurd, a seven foot lion that looked quite savage, pointing it's tail playfully up at Harry, that he simply had let go of his fear that Raides was at all going to try to hurt him. He almost felt like laughing but he quickly slipped back into deep worry when he remembered why Raides was doing that.  
  
"Afraid Voldemort's going to succeed this time?" asked Raides thoughtfully.  
  
"Yeah," said Harry at once.  
  
"Don't worry about it. Keep me with you whenever you think he's around. He doesn't stand a chance against a staff, especially me. I prevented that Clades Ultimus from killing you and your friend, remember?"  
  
"But where did all of that blood come from that Hermione said we were covered in?" Harry had to ask.  
  
"Ah, I don't think you'd like to know the details of that. So how about the weather last night?" she asked, changing the subject purposely.  
  
"What was it? Come on, tell me!" Harry shouted in a whisper, very interested.  
  
"All right, fine. I couldn't stop it from doing anything at all... but when your bodies were breaking apart, I was able to stop it from going much further and heal the severe wounds. Happy?"  
  
Harry winced at the thought. "So - so we were... and the blood was... where..." he said, taking a lot of strength.  
  
"Yes," affirmed Raides. "Clades Ultimus attempts to obliterate the body," she said simply. "The words are Latin. They mean ultimate destruction. The blood was where your bodies were coming apart at the seams. Lovely, isn't it?"  
  
"Oh, yes," said Harry airily, fighting down last night's dinner, looking away from the staff.  
  
"Now what about your scar," said Raides firmly.  
  
"What about my scar..." said Harry miserably.  
  
Both of them went silent.  
  
Harry's scar had hurt him once before while at Privet Drive and what he had overseen that time, three years ago, was Lord Voldemort speaking to Wormtail (Peter Pettigrew's nickname at Hogwarts). Peter's Animagus form, a rat, fit him perfectly. He was a short, balding man who liked to be with the big boys and though he was a poor wizard, Lord Voldemort found some uses for him.  
  
Not having much to do at the moment, as he didn't feel like talking anymore, Harry opened his wardrobe and looked at the mirror inside it. On his forehead he easily spotted the lightning-shaped scar. Before he knew he was a wizard, he liked the scar. It was very unusual and it made him stand out amongst all his schoolmates (none of them were friends, Dudley made sure of it). Aunt Petunia told him he had gotten it during the car crash that killed his parents. Since he had learned of his mysterious past, he had begun to hate it.  
  
He hastily hid it with his untidy black hair as he always did when he had this dream.  
  
"Why do you keep hiding it?" asked Raides curiously.  
  
Harry ignored her.  
  
He didn't like to look at his eyes much, either. They were a bright green, a feature that Harry inherited from his mother. The black hair atop his head came from his father and the knobbly knees he had were a trait from an old man he once saw in a mirror. To Harry's displeasure, he learned that this mirror, the Mirror of Erised, showed what the viewer's heart desired most. In Harry's case, this was proper family.  
  
Sickened and worried, Harry turned to Raides.  
  
"Good night," he said shortly and before his eyes, Raides transformed back into a staff.  
  
"Good night," she said back pleasantly, before becoming lifeless again, the crystal reappearing in her mouth. Harry put the Staff of Cybele on his dresser and retreated back to his bed. He was merely glad she was so nice to him even though he thought he hadn't been so kind back.  
  
Staring out of his window, Harry looked up and down Privet Drive. It was a respectable street but none too welcoming to wizards. A few blocks away lived an old lady who disguised herself very well, even to Harry, for she was a witch and Harry never knew until two years ago. Harry stayed with Mrs. Figg whenever the Dursleys had to leave the house. He didn't like Mrs. Figg much. She had lots of cats (one hint Harry should have used to guess that she wasn't a Muggle) and continually showed him pictures of cats past. She was nice to him, though. She let him watch television, something the Dursleys never did, and he got to eat whatever he wanted.  
  
No, what Harry wanted most, sitting up and staring out his window into the night sky, was a real home with a real family. He got up again and picked up a pen to cross off one more day on his calendar until his return to Hogwarts. His enemies, the entire house of Slytherin (Hogwarts students were sorted into one of four houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin), aside, Hogwarts was better than staying with the Dursleys. He was continually hungry and he was continually very bored.  
  
His friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had sent him birthday cakes with a Stale Prevention Charm placed on them, a useful discovery by Hermione. She was a very clever student who, each successive year, had gotten more used to being lazy with school rules. You had to be that way if you were Harry's friend. Harry continually broke school rules but it was usually with purpose for each year he had saved the day... for the most part.  
  
With one last twinge of his scar, Harry rubbed it with a finger and was reminded that Lord Voldemort had already resumed his killings. Just last week there was a news report about a mysterious mass murderer roaming the streets of London. The anchorman was quick to point out that it was very similiar to what had once happened some seventeen years ago.  
  
Harry simply didn't know what to do. He wasn't at all tired but when a grumble in his stomach sounded, he got on all fours and lifted the loose floorboards under his bed. He used this very convenient hiding place to store all the food he got from anyone. Currently, there was a half finished cake from Hermione. Ron's cake had, unfortunately, gone stale (Ron wasn't as good at magic as Hermione). They both sent Harry their cakes well before his birthday for they knew he would be needing it. They would have sent presents as well, but most people weren't too keen on leaving their house with Voldemort around. Was it really that bad, Harry had to think, or were they just playing it safe?  
  
Harry was the second shortest of the three, Ron being the tallest and Hermione the shortest. Harry was by far the skinniest, as he always had been for his age but he was never bothered by it. Currently, what also bothered him next to his dream and his scar, was that, according to his handsome, golden wrist watch, it was five in the morning and he wanted to go back to sleep. He had had enough celebrating his birthday by himself for the past four hours (though he did get cards from Ron, Hermione and Hagrid). Uncle Vernon grunted in his sleep and it made Harry want to sleep even more. Light was creeping into his room, the sky turning a dull bronze.  
  
Hesitating, Harry walked over to a necklace he had been given a little over a year ago. It was a coveted necklace, this necklace. Wizards or witches who have done great deeds, excellent and brave deeds, to the wizarding world were awarded with an Order of Merlin Third Class, Second Class or First Class. Harry, to his great surprise, had been awarded First Class and received a golden necklace with a plaque like a beautiful charm attached to it. His full name, Harry James Potter, was written on it in white gold.  
  
Harry had taken to holding it. Last year, he learned that, since receiving this necklace had come as such a shock to him, when he held it, everything he ever did, every person he ever saved and every life he ever touched came rushing back to him, warming him, strengthening him. And for it, he felt better about himself with the plaque in his hand. By holding it, it was proof to him that he was famous, that he was loved, or at least liked, worldwide and that he had great value to countless witches and wizards. The necklace wasn't bewitched or magical at all; it was just a thing in his head and this made him feel guilty.  
  
Some people were not surprised at all by Harry getting an Order of Merlin. When Harry was one year old, Lord Voldemort's curse, the Killing Curse, had bounced off him, leaving the scar on his forehead, and stripped Lord Voldemort of power. Harry was left on the doorstep of his hateful mother's sister and forced to live with them ever since.  
  
But coming back to now, Albus Dumbledore had convinced Harry that he needed to stop using the necklace for comfort but Harry just couldn't help himself. He had been feeling so rotten since he first had the dream that he had been falling asleep with the necklace in his hands every time. As usual, Harry picked it up and got back into bed, pulling the covers over himself, clutching the Order of Merlin plaque tightly. He felt even more guilty whenever he did this... but it always worked.  
  
After a few minutes of waiting to fall asleep, it hadn't happened. Harry was too worked up. He let his mind wander, thinking that perhaps it would wander onto a good thought and after a few minutes of wandering, it had.  
  
There was one person he had met at Hogwarts whom he liked... a great deal. He first noticed her in his third year. She was a Seeker for Ravenclaw and he could still recall that the first time he ever caught sight of her he had a lurch in his stomach he now knew didn't have anything to do with worry over winning that Quidditch game.  
  
Harry thought Cho Chang to be very pretty but to his dismay, she had been seeing one Cedric Diggory in his fourth year. Cedric had been killed by Lord Voldemort and since then, Cho had found comfort in Harry and he in her. They had become great friends the past two years, both sharing a miserable home life. He hoped to be seeing her again sometime soon. Sirius suggested he find a way to convince the Dursleys to let her come for a day. Now with a perfectly happy thought in his head, Harry could finally fall asleep. That was what he would do: find a way to let his aunt and uncle agree to let Cho stay with Harry for a day.  
  
Him and Cho had gone on three... dates (the word didn't make him shudder anymore, thankfully), all of which, except the second (where they broke up), were very enjoyable. Cho had felt angry with herself for lying to Harry about her dad and what he had done once Cho had told him that Harry and her had become great friends. Her dad was jealous that a one year old baby had stopped Lord Voldemort and he had since lost his mind, becoming verbally abusive to his family. When Cho told him that his daughter was seeing the same boy, he had gone off the deep end. Cho had told Harry that her dad was happy for her... when in reality, he wasn't. Harry, on the other hand, had spilled his heart out to Cho and she left, feeling very guilty.  
  
Hermione forced the two to get back together and in the end, it worked out. Harry was grateful for it and though he never voiced this to Hermione, it was evident at the time he and Cho spent together. If Harry could get his aunt and uncle to agree to have her come, even if she wouldn't do anything but sit in his room and goggle at the Staff of Cybele, he would be with someone and that was better than being alone. 


	3. The Offer

Chapter 3: THE OFFER  
  
Harry woke up the next morning in slightly brighter spirits. Since he hadn't gone anywhere for an entire month, there just wasn't a point in getting out of pajamas -- that and he had just put them on two days ago. The Dursleys had gone back to being their rotten selves in Sirius' absence and they had now taken to becoming even worse -- he was only allowed to shower once a week ("You're wasting the water."). When Harry had told them what happened to Sirius, for Aunt Petunia had asked why he wasn't staying again, their response was a shrugging of the shoulders and a nonchalant "Oh." This had made Harry furious and he stormed back up the stairs to his room.  
  
He opened the door to his room and walked down the stairs to breakfast. Dudley was sitting in the living room eating on the couch much to Aunt Petunia's detestment ("You're getting crumbs on the floor, Dudders. Do you mind eating on the couch, please?"). Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were finishing up pancakes and eggs in the kitchen. Like always, they didn't acknowledge Harry when he entered. Their conversation caught his interest but it wasn't anything he liked to hear...  
  
"You're picking up Marge today, aren't you?" Aunt Petunia was saying.  
  
"Yes. She's getting a new house. Thinking of moving here. Bad things going on lately. Says her neighborhood is bad news. Good for her. That old house of her's is ratty anyway," said Uncle Vernon.  
  
Anything old was immediately distasteful to the Dursleys, even if it was in perfect condition. This held true for expensive things as well, which were difficult to replace. If it was old, get rid of it and if needed, get a new one. That was their motto.  
  
Marge, or Aunt Marge, rather, as she forced Harry to call her even though she was not a blood relative of Harry's, was on his top ten list of most hated people. She was a beefy woman with a mustache, though not as thick as Uncle Vernon's. She never married. She also had no knowledge of Harry being a wizard and that was just the way Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia liked it. As such, they need excuses for why he was missing for ten months out of twelve. According to them, he goes to St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys. That aside, Aunt Marge still thinks Harry as such.  
  
She once came bringing Dudley a robot toy and Harry, dog biscuits. When Harry had accidently stepped on the tail of one of her dogs, the dog, Ripper, chased Harry up a tree. Aunt Marge had not called Ripper off until past midnight. It was this that made Harry tell himself "not again... not - ever - again." She liked to say what made Harry such an unsatisfactory person. Harry was not going to stand for this any longer, he assured himself. He has enough problems, he doesn't need her... To make matters worse, he couldn't explain to himself why she hated him so much.  
  
Why, just three years ago, during Aunt Marge's first visit since Harry found out he was a wizard, something bad had happened. While Aunt Marge had been going on about how Harry turned out, she had made a comparison that Harry didn't take a liking to.  
  
"It's one of the basic rules of breeding," he remembered clearly that she said. "You see it all the time with dogs. If there's something wrong with the bitch, there'll be something wrong with the pup --"  
  
Just as soon as she got to that, Harry had lost control. Gripping her wine glass, it shattered beneath her fingers. Thankfully, Aunt Marge had done such a thing without a wizard's help...  
  
Only a few days later, perhaps Aunt Marge had had too much wine. Her pudgy face had become a deep red. This time, she had been going on about Aunt Petunia's cooking and then turned the conversation quickly to "healthy-sized" boys, winking at Dudley. If Dudley was healthy-sized, Harry thought, then he was happy to be an unhealthy-sized boy. She turned to Harry and said that he had a runty look, comparing him to a dog she once had drowned.  
  
At the time, Hermione sent Harry a handbook on broomstick care. He had been using it all during Aunt Marge's stay to calm himself but it was just not working at this point...  
  
Aunt Marge continued to mention that Aunt Petunia's sister, inconveniently Lily Potter, was a "bad egg," and that she "ran off with a wastrel" and that Harry was the result. Harry tried dearly to put the Handhook in his mind but nothing would drown out Aunt Marge's booming voice.  
  
Aunt Marge, suddenly remembering she had never been told what Mr. Potter did for a living, asked. Very quickly, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had a look of stress upon their faces. Dudley looked up from his pie to gape at them. Something bad was going to come of any answer, Harry knew it. Uncle Vernon had then said the unthinkable, that Mr. Potter was unemployed.  
  
"As I expected!" Harry remembered clearly that Aunt Marge had said, "A no-account, good-for-nothing, lazy scrounger who --" But Harry quickly bursted out that his dad was nothing of the sort.  
  
Uncle Vernon had gone as white as his shirt and there was nothing but silence to be heard. Desperate, Uncle Vernon tried to pour more brandy into Aunt Marge's glass and ordered Harry to go to his room. Harry would have done so -- and very happily -- but Aunt Marge told him to stay, taunting that he was proud of his parents. She had mentioned they died in a car crash and that she expected them to be drunk...  
  
Then, Harry would have been glad to spill the entire story.  
  
On his feet, he bursted out they didn't die in a car crash. Aunt Marge, who had entered a tirade, swelled with anger, calling him ungrateful among other things -- except the swelling didn't stop. Harry had magically enlarged her until he had ran away from the house, Hedwig's cage, his trunk and all his school things with him. He now vowed to never let Aunt Marge do that -- ever again.  
  
"You - had - better - keep her in line," said Harry to Uncle Vernon angrily. "I've been given permission to use magic this summer. You want to see the letter?" And before he even finished speaking, Harry started towards his room, going to grab the letter Dumbledore had given him. In truth, he had been, but it was only necessary magic. Blowing up Aunt Marge would not count as necessary magic. It was a white lie, he assured himself, a necessary one.  
  
At once, Uncle Vernon had muttered something that sounded like "fine." His voice had come through and he added, "And you're to behave, boy. And I don't want you wearing any of that -- that jewelry -- that ruddy necklace and bracelet, especially the bracelet -- during her visit, either."  
  
Harry laughed to himself. The Phoenix Bracelet was as far from being Muggle-like as was possible. The Dursleys were just as unnerved at their first glance at it as they were of the Staff of Cybele. His mom's Phoenix Bracelet was silver, but that was where the similarities stopped. Fire swirled around the band, looking like it was engulfed in flames but it didn't burn the wearer or anything else for that matter.  
  
It was then that Harry got a great idea. "I'll behave -- or at least try to, you know Aunt Marge -- if you let me have someone stay, too," he said, thinking of Cho. He only really wanted her to come for a day but Aunt Marge, who was apparently looking for a new house... who knows how long she would be staying... !  
  
Uncle Vernon shot a nervous glance at Aunt Petunia. Harry knew they didn't like the idea of another wizard in the house. But they more than didn't like it, it was almost an unspeakable rule to not ask such a thing. To make matters worse, Harry had not once ever mentioned Cho. They had never, ever let Harry have someone over at the house, even when he didn't know he was a wizard (or was that because he didn't have any friends to have over?)  
  
"Absolutely not!" growled Uncle Vernon. Aunt Petunia looked ready to burst out laughing at what Harry has asked.  
  
"You don't want a repeat of her last visit, do you?" said Harry angrily. Looking at his uncle's great, purple face for an answer, he couldn't immediately tell if the workings of his uncle's brain was considering the offer.  
  
"If there's a repeat of her last visit, there's going to be trouble, boy," said Uncle Vernon threateningly. His face turned an ugly puce color and Harry would have to think of something else to say.  
  
What was there? What would be so terrible, so horrifying and so disgusting to the Dursleys that they just couldn't live with it?  
  
Ah! Harry then realized. Why hadn't he thought of that sooner! "Magical Reversal only came that time because it was a bad experience for her," he went on. "They won't come if I just... oh, just show her I'm a wizard," he added, putting on an innocent grimace.  
  
At once, it had the effect he wanted. Aunt Petunia looked simply horrified. Uncle Vernon's eyes became teeny slits of rage and Harry could swear he couldn't see out of them. But Uncle Vernon wasn't about to burst out at Harry for then Harry would surely... and they could never live with that. Instead, Harry noticed that his face had become slightly white and curled into something that was supposed to be a neutral look and not one someone gives when getting a good smell of the trash. It wasn't worth the effort either because it was painful for Uncle Vernon to keep his face like that. And his lower lip was twitching.  
  
"Fine," said Uncle Vernon, barely moving his lips. "Who is it that you want?"  
  
"You've never met her," said Harry. "Her name's Cho." Met was probably not the appropriate word as the Dursleys had had many encounters with wizards but were never properly introduced.  
  
"A girl?" Aunt Petunia asked, making sure she had heard correctly. "You mean you've actually MET someone?" she added disbelievingly.  
  
Harry felt a stab of annoyance. It just wouldn't feel right to ask Ron or Hermione to stay. Furthmore, it was embarassing enough without anyone asking odd questions.  
  
"Yes," Harry affirmed. And then, thinking he might as well try to start a decent conversation, he added, "We met three years ago. Spend most of our free time together. We like each other a lot and just last term, we..."  
  
Neither Uncle Vernon nor Aunt Petunia looking remotely interested, he stopped himself from going on about the three dates they went on. His aunt and uncle were horrified at the thought of having another wizard in the house, be it male or female. Normally, they would have never even considered it, but the Staff of Cybele was just sitting up in Harry's bedroom and that was the last thing they needed Aunt Marge to find out about.  
  
Harry began to simply glow thinking about Cho. This must have shown on his face because Uncle Vernon then asked, "How can this -- this girl -- "  
  
"Cho," said Harry automatically.  
  
"-- get here?" Uncle Vernon finished as if Harry never spoke. It was a great conflict for Uncle Vernon. He liked to keep Harry unhappy but he couldn't live if Aunt Marge ever found out that Harry was a wizard.  
  
That was a good question. Harry hadn't thought of that. The last time a wizard had traveled by their usual means of travel -- by fire -- the Dursleys had been most upset. However, it still brought tears of joy to Harry's eyes and made Dudley clamp his hands around his fat bottom. Dudley's first encounter with a wizard had left him with a pig tail's sticking out of his trousers and the experience had never left him.  
  
"I'll have to write her and ask. She might want to come by Floo Powder," said Harry, smiling again. "You know, the fireplace. I don't know if she wants to come, though. I never asked," he added, suddenly feeling horrible and almost regretting he had ever mentioned it in the first place.  
  
What if she said no? What if she felt too awkward and never wanted to see him again? What if her dad did something terrible? He would be responsible.  
  
"On second thought," said Harry, making himself a bowl of cereal, getting ready to go back to his room, "I'll let you know later."  
  
All of the diets the Smelting's school nurse had requested Dudley go on had failed. Aunt Petuia had since given up on trying to make him lose weight and the school has been forced to special-order Dudley's clothing. One of the side benefits of these failed diets was that Harry was able to eat slightly more. He still had his birthday cakes and so even without proper meals, he wouldn't go hungry like he had only two years before. During that summer, Aunt Petunia, to raise Dudley's morale, made sure that Dudley got more to eat than Harry.  
  
For now, Harry tried to go back to his room but Aunt Petunia told him to eat in the kitchen because she was afraid he'd spill something on his floor. After eating, he finally got out, feeling slightly disheartened.  
  
"You're to come down to greet her as soon as she arrives!" Aunt Petunia called to Harry's back.  
  
Harry still did like the idea -- Sirius gave it to him -- but he was now worried that Cho would say no. Asking her to stay -- overnight -- for a so-far undetermined amount of days? What was he thinking? Even if she just stayed for an hour... And it would have been like celebrating his birthday all over again like he had last year at a Fire Quidditch game. This year's, with Voldemort lurking around, had been postponed. Madam Hooch told Harry he would get a letter telling him the date if he wished to play and he quickly told her there was no question that he would want to play again. Harry was looking forward to it, despite the fact that it's, well, a very dangerous version of Quidditch.  
  
The enhanced version of the most popular sport in the wizarding world attracted half a million wizards and witches worldwide last summer, most of whom just wanted to see Harry play. The International Ministry of Quidditch thought it would be a nice birthday present to make the game Harry was to play in on the thirty-first of July -- his birthday. Fire Quidditch was exactly like normal Quidditch except the Bludgers get replaced by speeding fireballs, the Quaffle gets bewitched to gain unnatural speed when thrown, capable of reaching the sound barrier of about seven hundred miles per hour and the Golden Snitch, renamed the Spiked Snitch, is laden with sharp knives. It's the Seeker's responsibility to prevent his or herself from getting gored.  
  
Year to year for a long time, the rules went under constant change to prevent deaths. Only two teams ever competed in Fire Quidditch: England and the United States. It seemed that the United States' players were just crazier and so for one hundred years, England did not stand a chance against them. It took Harry, during a game two years ago, to beat the United States.  
  
At one point, Fire Quidditch, due to it's high death count, had been banned worldwide but was brought back due to popular demand. It wasn't until last year when not a single person was injured that the rules weren't changed from the previous year. Harry had an itching feeling they were going to change them this year to make it more dangerous.  
  
Up in his bedroom, Harry heard the front door of the number four open and then close. Uncle Vernon would be returning with Aunt Marge soon enough. He rummaged around his room, stuffing his Order of Merlin necklace and the Phoenix Bracelet (which his mom had once owned) into a drawer, looking for a quill and parchment. Should he ask Cho right out? Should he sent a letter to Ron or Hermione first, asking if he should even bother? Or should he just forget it altogether and sit, bored, waiting for Aunt Marge's return?  
  
Harry grabbed the parchment and eagle-feather quill and sat at his desk, thinking of who best to send a letter to first. Ron, Hermione, Cho... Ron, Hermione, Cho... he just couldn't think straight. How had he gotten himself into this mess in the first place?  
  
He banged his right fist on the desk, quill in hand, resting his chin on his other palm. No fantastic ideas coming to him, he stared at his calendar where he crossed off days waiting for his return to Hogwarts for his final year. He wasn't very excited about leaving: where would he go? Would Harry stay at Privet Drive until someone could get him a job and a house somewhere else? He shook his head, letting that thought fall out of it and then wrote Dear Cho without thinking. Noticing his mistake, he scribbled out Cho's name and wrote Hermione next to it -- also without thinking. Fine, it would go to Hermione.  
  
Taking several, long minutes to write, rewrite, cross out and edit his letter, he finally marveled at it and read it all back to himself:  
  
Dear Hermione,  
I got myself in a predicament and I thought you could give me some advice. My Aunt Marge is coming to stay. You remember her, the one I blew up? She's looking for a new house because her old one, she says, is too old. Rather, she's afraid Voldemort will turn up and kill her so she's staying here at Privet Drive and I don't know for how long.  
  
Anyway, I made a deal with my uncle that I'd try to behave if I could have someone stay, too. They weren't to keen on the idea at first, mind you, but they agreed to it after I threatened to blow her up again. The first person that came my mind, no offense, was Cho. I didn't ask her beforehand and I'm afraid to send her a letter mostly because I have this feeling she'll say no or feel too awkward or something and never want to speak to or see me again. And I don't want that.  
  
I don't know what else I want but I just know that if I'm forced to stay under the same roof as Aunt Marge for another month, you should expect to not see me at Hogwarts in September because I just might blow her up again. I'll be known as Harry "Blew His Aunt Up Twice" Potter.  
  
Help.  
  
Very distressed,  
Harry  
  
Satisfied, he turned to Hedwig, who looked up at Harry importantly.  
  
"I need you to send this to Hermione for me," he said to her.  
  
Harry opened Hedwig's cage and she fluttered pleasantly onto his desk, sticking her leg out so he could attach the letter to it.  
  
"Aunt Marge is coming again," he went on. "I reckon you're going to have to disappear again but I don't know how long this time." At this, he saw a distinct, unhappy droop to her tail feathers. "I'm going to miss you more than you're going to miss me, Hedwig," he assured her.  
  
Harry attached the letter to her leg with a small bit of string he conveniently kept in his desk. She flew onto his arm, staring at the closed window.  
  
"Come right back here once you've given it to her. I might be able to convince them to let you stay."  
  
Harry walked towards the window and opened it then watched with a dull look on his face as the sky became Hedwig-less. Not a moment later had the front door opened and closed again, indicating Aunt Marge's timely arrival.  
  
"Petunia!" she boomed happily. Her voice carried all the way from the front door up to Harry's room, through his closed door. "How nice to see you again!"  
  
"Here we go again," said Harry darkly to himself as he stuffed the Staff of Cybele under his bed. He half wanted it to spring to life on it's own and transform into a lion so it could horrify Aunt Marge but the thought of seeing Cho surpressed the urge. That, and the staff didn't spring to life until he held it... He started down the stairs and as soon as he reached the bottom, he was pulled aside by Uncle Vernon.  
  
"She saw your ruddy owl leaving your room when we got back!" he hissed, spit flying from his mouth (all of which missed Harry by inches). "What did I tell you!"  
  
"You're going to give yourself a heart attack," said Harry coolly, already having an excuse for her in his head. "What did she think it was?"  
  
"A stray! You get rid of that owl while she's here, you hear me?"  
  
"So tell her it was a stray. The big deal is... ?"  
  
Anything Uncle Vernon was going to say was cut short -- Aunt Marge spotted Harry. She forcefully thrusted her bags into his arms, clearly wanting to knock him back. Strangely, for so much force behind it -- and it surely would have done so had this odd something not have happened -- Harry did not budge. Rather, he stood as rigid as a statue.  
  
Harry didn't try to do it, he was just aware that it happened. It wasn't the first time; once before had something like that happened: Harry had seen that Sirius was lying in a hospital bed, almost completely soul-less. Dumbledore tried desperately to hide this from Harry and upon first seeing, Harry stood just as stiff with shock and horror as he had just a moment ago. They could not move him at all until someone managed to slip a Draught of Living Death, a powerful sleeping potion, down his throat.  
  
No one trying to notice this, Uncle Vernon cleared his throat loudly and said, "Marge, dear! Where have you been looking!" And Aunt Petuna's eyes thinned in disgust as she caught sight of one of Aunt Marge's dogs. Namely, Ripper. Not that she didn't like the episode where Ripper chased Harry up a tree, it was that she didn't like animals. Hedwig was certainly no exception to this rule, nor, mind, would be a seven foot lion.  
  
Aunt Marge seized Dudley in a one armed hug, only to have Aunt Petunia shove a twenty-pound note in Dudley's fat fist when they separated. His mom and dad paid him for this, as they didn't want Aunt Marge to think both of the children in their household were vile. Nevertheless, Aunt Marge treated Dudley like a king next to Harry.  
  
Upon being able to escape to his room, Hedwig had not yet returned and he disliked the fact that he would be forced to have the first of many dinners with Aunt Marge.  
  
"Doing good in school, are you, Dudley?" boomed Aunt Marge that afternoon.  
  
Dudley nodded, beaming. Harry groaned silently.  
  
"Just finished his last year at Smeltings," said Aunt Petunia in such a proud voice that it made Harry feel sick.  
  
"I'm going to Surrey Community College in September," said Dudley.  
  
Aunt Marge smiled pleasantly, grabbing her glass of wine and taking a swig from it. Then she rounded on Harry. Hermione's letter, he assured himself, is going to tell you exactly how to ask Cho.  
  
"And you," Aunt Marge snarled. "Where is it you go again?"  
  
"Saint something," said Harry, pretending to forget so he could put Uncle Vernon on the spot.  
  
"St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys," Uncle Vernon said quickly.  
  
"On my last year," said Harry trying to sound pleasant. "They gave Aunt Petunia a seven foot-long cane. You should see it. It's under my bed --"  
  
"And he's had steady progress since your last visit," said Aunt Petunia hastily. Uncle Vernon looked at Harry, looking almost ready to scream. Harry was accomlishing what he wanted. He was hoping that if he could put enough pressure on them, he wouldn't have to be in Aunt Marge's presence so often.  
  
"Get him through that school, Petunia," said Aunt Marge while still looking at Harry, who avoided her gaze, "and send him off. He doesn't need to stay here anymore afterwards. You're bad news, you know that, boy."  
  
Harry, who had been tending soley to his dinner looking down at it, flicked his eyes up and looked at Aunt Marge through the top of his round glasses without moving his head. He would have dearly loved to say "This family is bad news, the whole lot of you, just because I'm a wizard. I had a nice family but they were so viciously taken from me," but a loud bang that sounded like it had come from his room averted everyone's attention. While Aunt Marge turned to look in the direction of the staircase, Dudley, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon stared at Harry.  
  
"Excuse me," said Harry at once, wiping his lips with a napkin and swiftly rising from his seat.  
  
"Sit down, boy," snarled Aunt Marge. "I'm not finished with you!"  
  
"Yes, but I'm finished with you," said Harry angrily, surprised by own his words. "Bye."  
  
As Aunt Marge lifted herself from her seat, Harry turned around to see what she was doing and then started towards the stairs again.  
  
"I said come back!" roared Aunt Marge. Harry stopped walking, only a few feet from the stairs, and started to feel himself shaking with anger.  
  
He tried to stop his fists from clenching. Dudley dropped his fork. Aunt Petunia looked mortified.  
  
"You ungrateful, insolent little -" boomed Aunt Marge.  
  
Instantly, Uncle Vernon, who had gone so white it looked like someone had bleached his face, broke into nervous laughter, saying, "Marge, dear, let the boy go! St. Brutus' suggests to let them do their own thing sometimes! It works to your advantage!"  
  
There was a nasty silence. Harry continued to stare at the staircase and was still not moving. Dudley, who no one could see, had his mouth hanging open, a bit of drool on his bottom lip.  
  
"Thank you, Uncle Vernon," Harry heard himself saying listlessly, staring blankly at the stairs. He swept up the stairs towards his room, his anger coming with him.  
  
Some of the color managed to find it's way back into Uncle Vernon's face. Aunt Petunia swallowed. The two of them knew perfectly well that they had narrowly avoided a very serious disaster.  
  
Up in his room, at once he found out what the sound was. Hedwig was just outside his closed window, tapping it with her beak. Harry hurried over and opened it. Hedwig flew in and managed to make it to his bed before falling, bottom side up, out of the air onto it. She looked very tired. Harry then turned Hedwig upright, fixing the feathers that were sticking up in the wrong direction. It looked like she flew as fast as she could, recognizing the urgency of the situation.  
  
Harry bit his lip and removed the letter tied to Hedwig's leg. Nervously, he unfolded it and read.  
  
Harry,  
Hedwig was more than happy to send a letter to Cho for me so if she's a little tired, that's why. She came back with a reply very quickly, mind you.  
  
Anyway, just as I did, Cho thought it was cute that you didn't want to ask her directly.  
  
Harry's ears went pink.  
  
I asked for you because I know you, you won't ask for at least a week and you need to do something or you might just be known as Harry "Blew His Aunt Up Twice" Potter. Cho's dad was none to happy about it but in the end he agreed. I think it was a good idea I asked because her dad now has the impression you're shy and that you're not such a bad guy after all. At least that's what I got from her letter. She said that he was about to scream but suddenly stopped and said "He was too embarassed to ask directly?"  
  
Then they went a nice, light shade of red.  
  
I'm so glad for you two, you know that. As far as how long she can stay, her mom happens to trust that you're a nice boy and won't treat her bad. That and I'm pretty sure she wants to be able to say her daughter's boyfriend is Harry Potter.  
  
And then Harry's entire face went scarlet.  
  
So yes, she can stay with you up until September. For now, Cho wants you to write to her telling her when she can come (tomorrow even, if you like). She can get close to your house by Floo Powder and they have a friend in your neighborhood that can drive her the rest of the way so your aunt and uncle don't get upset, not to mention Aunt Marge.  
  
Hope you have a great summer,  
Hermione  
  
Looking not unlike a freshly picked apple, Harry was so happy to hear this excellent news that if he could Disapparate, he would go to Hermione's house and kiss her. He was excited. He'd never had a friend over. He breathed a huge sigh of relief. 


	4. The Latent Wizard

Chapter 4: THE LATENT WIZARD  
  
Harry's happy thoughts were then brought back to Earth with an unpleasant thump.  
  
"YOU WHAT!" boomed Aunt Marge from downstairs.  
  
Harry guessed that Aunt Petunia had told her she was allowing him to have a friend over. Did she tell Aunt Marge it was a girl?  
  
"AND WHERE EXACTLY DID HE MEET THIS GIRL?" he heard Aunt Marge yelling. "COME DOWN HERE, BOY!"  
  
Smiling, Harry quickly stuffed Hedwig in her cage and hid her in the closet and then shoved Hermione's letter into his drawer. Still feeling the effects of Hermione, he strode happily downstairs, saying, "I have a name, you know. It's Harry."  
  
"I don't like your tone, boy --" Aunt Marge snarled but Harry corrected her again.  
  
"Harry," he said coolly, stopping at the bottom stair. Aunt Marge was a foot in front of him, looking at Harry like he was gum on her great big shoes.  
  
"And don't you talk back to me," she growled, spit flying from her mouth. "You've not improved much, I see. It's a surprise to me any girl could ever like you."  
  
Behind Aunt Marge, Aunt Petunia watched as Harry's face went from smiling to angry in less time than it took you to say "crap." Aunt Petunia was giving a look of distress -- even she knew Aunt Marge had gone too far. Harry liked Cho very much and it bordered on... something else. He put his hands behind his back so no one could watch his fists clench. A surge of anger rising made it very painful to keep a straight face. An unfortunate side effect was that he stopped blinking, giving him a threatening look.   
  
"We like each other a lot," Harry replied, trying for dear life to hide his anger. He didn't care much for what Aunt Marge would say back to him and so then he said, "And I don't want you to touch her, she might catch something."  
  
Aunt Marge's hand was shaking as if she wanted to use it but something seemed to be surpressing the movement. For a wild moment, Harry thought the Memory Charm placed on her had failed but then she would have known that Harry doesn't attend St. Brutus'.  
  
Aunt Petunia was turning blue as she held her breath. Dudley had now successfully drooled on the table. Uncle Vernon was the color of sour milk.  
  
Harry finally dropped his menacing look, finally blinked and tried to sound at least slightly more pleasant. "I have to call her," he lied. It wasn't a total lie; he had to send her a letter. "A family friend will be driving her here."  
  
Immediately, Harry took note of Aunt Marge's hair being ruffled as Aunt Petunia exhaled. Her face turned a deep red as fresh blood entered it. The only thing keeping Harry from bursting was Cho and it wasn't going to last much longer if this kept up.  
  
"Go on then, boy. Call her now," Aunt Marge demanded. "I want to hear this!"  
  
Harry's shoulders tensed up, he suddenly felt very hot and Aunt Petunia's face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. What Aunt Marge didn't know, and the Dursleys could easily guess, was that Harry didn't have a telephone number for Cho. Aunt Petunia, who obviously suspected something like this, didn't stop her magical facial color changes and went as white as Uncle Vernon.  
  
"I -- er --" Harry stammered. He just didn't know what to say  
  
"Well? You want her to come, don't you?" spat Aunt Marge.  
  
Aunt Petunia, sensing more danger, said quickly, "St. Brutus' also suggests to give them some room. Better for their minds. Allows them to relax." Aunt Marge, too thick to see through it, bought Aunt Petunia's very noticeably fake smile. "Come, Marge, I'll help you get into your room."  
  
Was it possible, thanks to Sirius, that Aunt Petunia was on the verge of -- or at least at showing signs of -- becoming slightly, minutely, perhaps a teensy bit like a real aunt?  
  
"Nah," Harry thought aloud dismissively when he reached his room.  
  
"Lock the door," Aunt Petunia hissed quietly when Aunt Marge was preoccupied.  
  
Harry had no objections. He then pulled out his eagle-feather quill and two pieces of parchment, loaded up his quill with ink and wrote quickly.  
  
Hermione,  
Thank you so much, you have no idea how happy that letter made me. I really owe you one. Aunt Marge insulted both me and Cho, going on about how she wonders no girl could ever like me. Just when I was about to blow her up again, my real aunt came to my rescue which was very strange.  
  
I'm sending Cho a letter, too. Hedwig's going to carry both for me and I hope she's up to going again. If not, I'll send them in the morning. Just do me one last favor and don't read the letter to her?  
  
Thanks a bunch,  
Harry  
  
He folded it up, and to make it very obvious that it was for Hermione, wrote HERMIONE, OPEN THIS ONE FIRST on it. He didn't know what he was going to put in Cho's but he would just rather it was solely between her and himself.  
  
All he wrote was Dear Cho and then stopped. Maybe it would have been easier if he wrote to her first, but with the thought of her thinking it was "cute" that he was too shy to write to her first, his hand just didn't want to seem to write "Thank you."  
  
Aunt Marge booming about buying Dudley presents for his birthday present, which he heatedly reminded her that she forgot about, was not helping. Dudley was also going on about graduation presents. Smeltings held a huge graduation party at a nearby football field. Harry was forced to spend the entire two hours on his feet as all of the chairs were taken. It was no help that it was held outside in the sweltering heat.  
  
And for once, he was dressed in clothing that fit him perfectly. Aunt Petunia had rented a suit for Harry -- the cheapest one she could find. She didn't want it to happen, but Harry ended up being in plenty of pictures and she couldn't live with herself if he looked like a wild animal in horrible home-made clothing... That and the only thing Dudley had that would even remotely fit Harry would make him look like he had lost fifty pounds in one day.  
  
During Dudley's graduation ceremony, Harry's feet started to hurt beyond the threshold and he could no longer restrain himelf: he began to float a barely noticeable amount off the ground, reliefing his feet greatly. The only point at which someone noticed something was when a rather thick spider walked under him.  
  
Harry spent good half hour of writing his letter to Cho and crossing things out so not a word that he didn't want her to see could be deciphered. For some reason, his hand was shaking. Was it because Aunt Marge was in the same house as him again or was it because he felt nervous, for some reason or another, writing to Cho? Perhaps the latter because his face was red the entire time. When Harry thought he was finished, he read the letter back to himself.  
  
Cho,  
Thanks.  
  
A lot.  
  
So, how about Monday? I need a few days to tell my aunt and uncle everything they need to know, whatever that is. I'm going to make up a story about both our parents just in case Aunt Marge gets curious again and try to stick it as close to what they all really do as I can so it's not so crazy. I'll tell you all about it when you get here. Let me know if Monday is okay.  
  
Thanks again,  
Harry  
  
He didn't care for not sounding like a hopeless romantic -- Hermione had already done a good job of giving that impression to Cho's parents. But then he suddenly realized he would have to consult Aunt Petunia on the day Cho could come. Harry crumpled the note in his hand and without throwing it out, opened the door and looked around for Aunt Petunia. Her voice came to his ears and it sounded strangely like her and Uncle Vernon were in the cupboard under the stairs.  
  
He walked down for a better listen. They weren't in the cupboard and in fact his ears had horribly deceived him: they were just outside the patio door. When Uncle Vernon had said something that sounded a lot like "Secret-Keeper," Harry stopped dead for a better listen.  
  
"And that is?" growled Uncle Vernon.  
  
"It's why they don't want him staying anywhere else over summer vacation," Aunt Petunia snapped. "If he does, then that Voldemort person will be able to find him. Goodness knows I wish they didn't dump him on our doorstep but I don't want him dead."  
  
"Then why don't they mind it when we send him to someone else's house?" Uncle Vernon growled again.  
  
"Voldemort wasn't living, that's why. Now that he is, we can't - send - him - anywhere!"  
  
"And how did you find this out?"  
  
Harry moved as close as he could without being seen.  
  
"Read this," said Aunt Petunia, almost as a whisper. There was a few moment's silence, and then --  
  
"OH, PETUNIA!" shrieked Uncle Vernon.  
  
"Yes!" she shouted, irritated. "That was my reaction! Dudley! Our son! He said that... that I had it but it just never showed. Dudley caught it."  
  
"What are we questioning? It's simple. He's not going to that - that..."  
  
"They think it's a good idea if he just went for a year --"  
  
"No! Petunia, one is enough. What do you keep telling me you thought of your sister?" Uncle Vernon spat. Aunt Petunia didn't reply. "Did you tell him?" said Uncle Vernon, breaking the silence.  
  
"How can you even think I want Dudley going?" said Aunt Petunia, slightly calmer. "He doesn't know and neither does Harry."  
  
Harry grinned.  
  
"I don't understand. They want Dudley to go for a year just to see if he... LIKES IT?"  
  
"They already know he finished normal school and he's supposed to attend college in September."  
  
"Why are we even having this conversation!" said Uncle Vernon suddenly. "No! No! NO!"  
  
Thinking quickly, Harry made himself seen and ignoring the horrified looks on their faces, he said, "Dudley got a letter, eh?"  
  
"What's it to you?" snarled Uncle Vernon, his beady eyes fixed maliciously on Harry.  
  
"Dudley's not going to be able to control it unless he's taught how to," said Harry grimly. "He has been doing random things like I used to be, hasn't?"  
  
Uncle Vernon, if possible, looked even more strained. As all supposed-Muggles did before they knew they were a witch or wizard, Dudley had no doubt been unable to control himself and perhaps randomly showed a display of magic.  
  
"A teacher of his was showing him a paper he got back," said Uncle Vernon, "and he turned the grade of one into one-hundred before her eyes -- without a pen or pencil. She sent him home saying he was playing with magic tricks!"  
  
"One of the first things they do at my school is show you how to keep it under control," said Harry, grinning broadly. He tutted loudly as Hermione would and gave them a very noticeably fake sigh while turning to go back to his room.  
  
"He's not going!" Uncle Vernon yelled up the stairs.  
  
"Who's not going where?" boomed Aunt Marge.  
  
"Nothing, Marge, nothing."  
  
Having almost completely forgotten about Cho in Dudley's drama, Harry doubled back downstairs.  
  
"When's the earliest Cho can come?" he asked Aunt Petunia.  
  
"She's coming by car, you said?" she asked, glancing sidelong, suspiciously, at Harry.  
  
"Yes," Harry replied pleasantly, hoping to get the answer he wanted ("whenever you want").  
  
Uncle Vernon opened his mouth as if to say something, let out a grumble, then closed it.  
  
"Whenever you want," said Aunt Petunia.  
  
Overcome with joy, Harry surprised himself by hugging Aunt Petunia and then striding happily back up the stairs. She stood frozen for a moment, watching him go. Upon reaching his room, Harry unfolded the parchment still clutched in his hand. He pulled put a fresh piece and copied it so he could send it -- he didn't want Cho to think he was sloppy.  
  
"Hedwig?" he said, opening the closet. She was resting her head under a wing. "Feeling up to another journey?"  
  
She turned to look at him and gave a low hoot that clearly said "not yet."  
  
"Want some cake? It still tastes good. I don't have any bacon for you, maybe tomorrow."  
  
Hedwig nodded and Harry opened the loose floor boards under his bed where he hid most of his important things, namely his supply of food. He dug a hand into it, pulling out just enough for Hedwig to be able to finish and put it onto a tissue. Hedwig fluttered down onto the floor and Harry set the cake and tissue on the floor for her to eat.  
  
It was then that Harry realized every one of his friends had been so kind to him since the end of the last term. He just hoped that he would get to say thank you to Dumbledore for killing Voldemort this year. But, being Wednesday evening, Harry wanted Monday to come as fast as possible.  
  
The next morning, Hedwig felt ready to go deliver Hermione's and Cho's letter and so after waiting until dark, giving her a strip of bacon and checking that Aunt Marge wasn't outside, she was off. Harry quickly set out to make up stories for his and Cho's family in case Aunt Marge happened to ask.  
  
He decided that both his mom and dad worked at a hospital as doctors and Cho's dad was policeman, her mom, a shopowner. It fit... mostly. Harry informed his aunt (the real one), uncle and cousin of this as soon as he could and they quickly agreed to stick to it.  
  
Time seemed to have a bad habit of going an order of magnitude slower when someone wanted it to speed up. The hours on Thursday seemed like entire days and it had been an entire week since Hedwig returned with a letter from Cho and someone else. He happened to pull off Cho's note first.  
  
Harry,  
No problem, really. I've been waiting to get out of the house all summer. I'll be there a little after two on Monday, going to eat lunch first. My Aunt Blossom is driving me. She's a witch but she's very good at disguising herself as a Muggle.  
  
My parents wouldn't let me go anywhere because of You-Know-Who. Did you hear about those five Muggles who got killed in a shopping center? How horrible. I'm starting to see how bad it was when he first was in power. And Harry, you're not thinking of going after him, are you?  
See you soon,  
Cho  
  
Harry never had any thoughts of going after Voldemort by himself because that would be just like throwing himself in front of a large, three-headed dog, Hagrid the Hogwarts gamekeeper, once owned. This vicious beast had been christened Fluffy and had taken a large chunk out of Hagrid's leg just last year. Harry had come to the rescue by killing it and repairing the damage on Hagrid's leg with his mother's Phoenix Bracelet, a bracelet that happened to be able to heal severe wounds.  
  
Harry opened the second letter and read it.  
  
Potter,  
This year's Fire Quidditch game is again being held in the same place as usual. I've been given the date of August the fifteenth. Some rules have been changed this year and they are as follows:  
  
There are now four Bludgers  
You can disable them however you want and obviously, you have to  
There are now two Spiked Snitches and both must be caught  
The team with the most points when both are caught wins  
You can disable the spikes on the Snitches however you want (bat, club, wand, hand, whatever, though we prefer not your hand as the medic witches can only repair so much damage and, needless to say, it will hurt as those blades spin very fast)  
There will be a fifteen minute intermission when the first Spiked Snitch is caught  
Catching the Snitch is still worth one hundred and fifty points  
  
It seems they felt last year's game wasn't dangerous enough and it must be because of you that there are two Snitches and both must be caught. Do try to keep your extravagance down this time. Arthur Weasley is going to pick you up by car (yes, we know your adoring Aunt Marge is there) on the thirteenth. Miss Chang, obviously, can come, too.  
  
I think the only reason this game can be held is because of the Staff of Cybele. Please bring it along with you.  
  
The Unied States beat Germany and so England is playing them. The United States is a push-over this year. We're going to win.  
Cheers,  
Madam Hooch  
  
Grinning, Harry told Hedwig to clear off to Ron's, giving her another letter. Harry then brought Madam Hooch's letter to his aunt and uncle when Aunt Marge was busy booming about her dogs that she had to leave with Colonel Fubster to Dudley. The only reason Dudley listened to this speech was because he knew he would be getting a twenty pound note when she was finished.  
  
Aunt Petunia was happy to hear that she would be rid of Harry and Cho for three days as was Uncle Vernon. They would explain the situation to Aunt Marge that Harry was on a sports team for St. Brutus'. Aunt Marge didn't believe it. When Harry threatened to get his sports equipment (namely, his Dragonback and Quidditch robes, which thankfully, were the same color as England's Fire Quidditch robes), Uncle Vernon hastily said that he once went to a game and found it interesting. Feeling Harry pinch him in the side and trying to keep his face smiling, he somewhat proudly added that Harry was the star player. She didn't believe it.  
  
The evening before Cho's grand arrival came. Aunt Marge had sent Ripper to go play with Dudley, who had finished his dinner very, very fast. Harry thought that he couldn't stand any more talk of Cho and had the crazy idea that Dudley hadn't talked to any girls. It wasn't much surprise. Who would like someone who had once acheived what they've threatened to do since they were little and become wider than they were tall?  
  
"This girl -- what's her name again? -- what's she like?" Aunt Marge asked curiously. For once, Harry had no problems talking to Aunt Marge. Rather, he was glad the conversation wasn't clearly going to find a way to insult him.  
  
"Cho and she's smart, popular and I like her a lot," said Harry proudly. "She's coming to watch me play."  
  
"I see," said Aunt Marge, narrowing her eyes. Harry could honestly not see where she was going. "And where did you two meet?" she asked as if Cho was nothing more than an imaginary friend.  
  
"We -- er -- met at a... a game. Two years ago." Harry made a mental note to tell Cho this tomorrow. "Been seeing each other every summer ever since..." he added, staring at Uncle Vernon, then Aunt Petunia, both of whom nodded to accept the story.  
  
Monday morning arrived and Harry had woken up to see that the sun had not fully come up yet. The walls of his bedroom were a shade of orange, the sky, a dull pinkish. He groped around for his glasses and put them on and sat up, forgetting about the notion of getting any more sleep. Harry took a minute to assess his current situation and decided it wasn't that bad, especially when he suddenly remembered that he hadn't had that awful dream since his birthday.  
  
Feeling an overpowering urge to wear the Order of Merlin necklace, he had an idea so that Aunt Marge would never know what it really was. He crawled off his bed and grabbed the Staff of Cybele. It sprang to life, the crystal disappearing, and immediately he heard the familiar, soft voice speak in his head.  
  
"Well, hello there."  
  
"I think it's about time I see how powerful you really are," Harry said in his head.  
  
"Oh? What is it?"  
  
Harry pulled the staff out from under his bed and locked his door then held up the Order of Merlin necklace.  
  
"This," he said. "Is it -- er -- possible you can take the plaque off and later be able to stick it back on without damaging it at all?"  
  
"Of course! I specialize in defacing -- er, sorry -- modifying jewelry. Hold it up and point me at it."  
  
Harry did as he was told and was shocked at what had happened. The crystal, which had reappeared and was glowing a soft white, emitted one, thick ring of white light that widened, extending down the length of the staff until it looked like the entire staff was glowing. A soft, deep hum seemed to be produced by the white glow. The glow then rose up the staff, bunching up at the crystal, forming a huge ball. As soon as none of the glow remained on the staff except at the crystal, the white ball escaped the crystal and hit the plaque, which then fell to the ground, looking like it had never been attached in the first place.  
  
"Wow," said Harry aloud, amazed at not only that it worked but the cool special effects of his staff.  
  
"You'll get used to it after a while," said the staff in his head. "Just hold both of them in your hand and tell me when you want to reattach it. Have a good time with Cho," it added, the lion's mouth grinning broadly, the crystal having disappeared again.  
  
"Hey!" said Harry, turning red. "How did you know? You don't come to life until I hold you!"  
  
"I can see it in your eye," said the staff, laughing. "Why else would you feel like holding that plaque?"  
  
Harry, feeling slightly guilty, said, "Well, thanks. Sorry about having to keep you under the bed, but..."  
  
"It's all right. I quite like bed bugs." Harry couldn't help but laugh quietly. "You just watch yourself during that Fire Quidditch game. It's a good thing Dumbledore suggested you bring me along. Goodness knows Lord Voldemort wouldn't dare touch you with me around, especially when I'm morphed into a lion."  
  
"I don't think -- anyone -- would dare touch me with a seven foot lion breathing down their neck," said Harry, giggling.  
  
He sighed and looked around his room again; the orange was slowly fading into white.  
  
"Time for you to go, Raides," Harry told his staff and it went lifeless. He stuffed the Staff of Cybele under his bed and out of sight then got dressed and tried fruitlessly to make his untidy hair lie flat. A comb didn't work and so forgetting about the notion of grooming himself, he sat in bed until breakfast came, thinking of what he could possibly do for a month with Cho. This tragic reality hadn't occured to him and the most they could do inside the house was sit in his room and talk. The mere thought terrified him...  
  
Maybe they could think of ways to convince Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon of sending Dudley to Hogwarts? 


	5. Cho's Arrival

Chapter 5: CHO'S ARRIVAL  
  
After eating breakfast, Harry found that his legs walked him over to the couch in the living room. He gave in and sat down, leaning forward on his elbows, twiddling his thumbs staring blankly at a spot where Ripper had accidently relieved himself. At one point, the smell got to Harry and so when Aunt Marge and Dudley went out, Harry brought the Staff of Cybele downstairs and to Aunt Petunia's horror, Raides cleaned the mess before her eyes, white glowing ring and everything. If the Ministry of Magic was going to bang down their doors, so be it -- Harry needed to keep himself from climbing the walls.  
  
Aunt Petunia tried to thank him but all that escaped her mouth was a strangled gulp. Her eyes were diverted towards the familiar golden chain around Harry's neck but he pointed out that he had the plaque magically removed.  
  
Having still not moved from his spot, Aunt Petunia managed to say a few words. "Harry, are you going to move from that spot?"  
  
Harry looked up but continued to play with his fingers in nervous wait for Cho.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I said, are you going to move," said Aunt Petunia more loudly. "You're making all of us nervous! Have a cup of tea with your uncle and I."  
  
Harry's eyes squinted in confusion.  
  
"Eh? You're only being nicer to me because your own son turned out to be a wizard," he said dismissively and then went back to look at the spot where Ripper had relieved himself (he had been staring at it for so long, he would able to point it out for years to come).  
  
It must have been true because Aunt Petunia stormed away, her back straight as an arrow, her fists clenched.  
  
Aunt Marge returned with Dudley an hour later, who had lipstick on his cheek and was frantically rubbing it off, a new computer game clutched under his arm called When Vampires Attack. Aunt Marge refused to be in the room when Dudley was having fun poking vampires with stakes and swords. Harry took the opportunity to tell Dudley he might get to meet a real vampire if he goes to Hogwarts. Harry then went back to sit on the couch, leaving Dudley alone, who immediately went to play Solitaire.  
  
Sitting and staring must have given Harry a glazed look because Aunt Marge voiced the opinion that he was mentally inept, just as he had done during her last visit. That time, Harry tried desperately to keep his broom cleaning handbook in his head and Aunt Marge's voice out. It had had the same effect as a blank stare.  
  
Some time just before lunch, Harry's leg started to shake on it's own. Try as he might to put all his weight on it to stop it, he had to succumb to standing up to stop the shaking. All the same, it was time for lunch anyway. Harry had lost his appetite when Aunt Marge asked when Cho was arriving. He looked at the handsome, gold wristwatch Sirius had forced the Dursleys to pay for (for the most part, part of the money came from Sirius). It was a little after one o'clock. Cho was probably still eating and was not a nervous wreck like Harry was. He wished he could reattach the plaque and hold it but what if Aunt Marge had asked to see it... Desperate, he went back to the couch and rested his neck on a hand, innocently slipping the gold chain between two fingers. Warm, sweeping calmness crept over him like a sunbath and it would have to make do until the hairs on the back of his neck stopped standing up.  
  
"I've never seen you like this," he heard Aunt Petunia saying at one point.  
  
"You've never seen much of anything," said Harry hotly. "I'm a person too, you know."  
  
This left Aunt Petunia walking away disgruntled.  
  
A little after two, the doorbell rang and Harry stood up so suddenly it was as if a thumbtack had been magically placed under him.  
  
"I'll get it!" he yelled and, shaking, walked slowly over to the door.  
  
Aunt Petunia, Aunt Marge, Uncle Vernon and Dudley were all staring at the closed door. Harry opened it and, standing behind it, was the very pretty Cho and who had to be her Aunt Blossom. The muscles in his mouth seemed to have locked themselves and there was a strange grumble in his stomach that he couldn't distinguish from being hunger or nervousness. But he had already eaten.  
  
"Hi!" said Cho, beaming.  
  
What unlocked Harry's jaw, allowing him to do something other than stare, was when Cho grabbed him in a great, big, warm, two-armed hug. Dudley drooled again. Aunt Marge had a vein throbbing in her temple. Uncle Vernon looked away. Aunt Petunia looked indifferent.  
  
"Oh, how nice," Aunt Blossom said, smiling pleasantly at Cho and then at Harry, who had gone redder than Aunt Blossom's handbag yet was enjoying himself all the same. "You must be Mr. Dursley!" said Aunt Blossom, looking at him and striding past Dudley, who was wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "How -- er -- nice to meet you," she added, sticking her hand out. Uncle Vernon didn't take it.  
  
"I told her to try an act as pleasant as possible but said how rotten they are to you," Cho whispered in Harry's ear just before they separated. She winked. "Come on, show me your room," she said aloud, seizing his hand.  
  
"You behave yourselves now," said Aunt Blossom, sharply but kindly, rather like a mother.  
  
"Yes, Aunt Blossom," said Cho, rolling her eyes and she allowed her aunt to plant a kiss on her cheek.  
  
"I'll see you at Harry's game, shall I? Do you have a date for it yet?" Aunt Blossom added, looking to Harry.  
  
"August fifteenth," he replied. "Mr. Weasley is coming to pick us up the day before."  
  
"Yes, yes, very good. Well, if you excuse me I have to be off," said Aunt Blossom still, to Harry's amazement, smiling pleasantly. She was acting much like the aunt everyone has that gives everyone big, sloppy, wet kisses, leaving a lipstick mark and then wipes it all off with a tissue and spit. "Very busy at the house lately. You know. Nice meeting you, now!" and she was gone.  
  
Harry had the feeling Cho warned her to find an excuse to just drop Cho off and leave. As soon as the door closed, Cho tugged Harry's arm and went towards the staircase saying, "Your room, Harry. I want to see!"  
  
Harry didn't know what could be so fascinating about a bedroom but he took her up to it, regardless.  
  
Getting an idea, he locked the door and took out the Staff of Cybele. As Harry expected, Cho stared at it, especially interested in the wagging tail.  
  
"You haven't seen anything," Harry told her, grinning ear to ear.  
  
"You must be Cho," the voice said aloud. "You can call me Raides."  
  
"Oh -- my -- God," said Cho, unnerved.  
  
"It's okay," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Here, read this." Harry gave Cho Madam Hooch's letter.  
  
After a minute, Cho looked up and said, "They're only holding the game because of the staff? Why?"  
  
"This is why," he replied, grinning more broadly still.  
  
The staff's tiny lion head nodded and Harry put it on the floor.  
  
Cho watched, mouth agape, as the body of the staff thickened just as it had done once before. It's tail grew longer, the head became bigger and the fur, fuller. Cho marveled, slightly scared, as the staff changed into a seven foot long lion, golden fur on it's head and body, changing smoothly to scarlet just before it reached the tail.  
  
Raides curled up on the floor like a rug, resting her head on a paw, her tail in the air.  
  
"Nice to see you, too," she said in a low growl, her deceivingly menacing, beautiful head looking up at Cho.  
  
"Go on," said Harry, giggling. "She doesn't bite."  
  
Cho slowly moved her hand to the top of Raides' head, feeling the warm, soft fur. Raides purred.  
  
"She's been keeping me great company so far," Harry told Cho.  
  
"Ah, I can't wait until the Fire Quidditch game," said Raides. "Is that rat Slytherin still alive?"  
  
"No, he's long dead," said Harry. Him and Cho shot each other quizzical looks and then Cho finished Harry's thought.  
  
"Why?" she asked.  
  
"Oh, I see you've already killed the basilisk," Raides said, smiling. Harry laughed nervously.  
  
"It's the year nineteen ninety-seven," he told Raides. "The Hogwarts founders have been dead for over a thousand years."  
  
"I see," said Raides, letting out a puff of air so strong it ruffled Harry's and Cho's hair. "When you're asleep for a few thousand years you get behind the times. So go on, tell me!"  
  
It took Harry and Cho all the time from then up until dinner and till midnight to tell Raides everything that had ever happened concerning Voldemort since Harry got his lightning-shaped scar to his fourth year. They sat on the floor for the entire time. Both Raides and Cho shrieked at exactly the right times and both of them put an arm (or paw, in Raides' case) on Harry when he got to the part about what had happened in the third task of the Triwizard Tournament.  
  
This was a one hundred year old tournament that had been reestablished three years ago only to have gone down in flames due to it's horrific ending. A servant of Lord Voldemort had turned the Triwizard Cup into a Portkey, which transported Harry and Cedric Diggory to a graveyard. This same servant had put Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire which spit out the names of the three champions. To everyone's surprise, the goblet gave out Harry's name... Harry was too young to do it himself; only people sixth or seventh year were allowed to compete. He dreamed of winning, of seeing Cho's face shining admirably at him (and he admitted this to Cho during the story, blushing furiously) but never really wanted to compete.  
  
In the graveyard, Voldemort ordered Wormtail to kill Cedric. Harry had witnessed the rebirth of Voldemort and was forced to duel. During this duel, a rare spell effect, Priori Incantantem had taken place. Voldemort's wand was forced to regurgitate all the spells it had casted in reverse order... ending with shadows of Lily and James Potter falling out of it. The servant later had his soul sucked out by a dementor, leaving him worse than dead but Voldemort had gotten away.  
  
Harry sat silent for a few minutes, a tear leaking out of his eye every few seconds, after he finished this story.  
  
Finally, he said, "The next year I had seen them again. They knew how to remove the mark of ancients."  
  
"Wait a minute," Raides interrupted sharply. "You -- removed -- the mark of ancients?"  
  
"Yeah, why?" He quickly explained his fourth year, in which he had been tricked into thinking he had a sister and the few hours he spent with his parents, asking them how to remove the mark. "So you see, we had to, because I was losing it trying to fight off that permanent Imperius."  
  
"Ah, ancient magic is such a pain," said Raides lazily.  
  
Harry nodded weakly and said, "Dumbledore told me I'd see them again when I was older," in a low voice. He couldn't help but give in to the thought that now that he had spoken about it... "Except... I'm older and I... I haven't seen them yet." He breathed deeply and looked away from Cho, up to his calendar.  
  
Cho crawled behind Harry and put both of her hands around his front, gripping his shoulders. Harry didn't feel much like speaking so Cho told Raides everything that had happened just last year.  
  
"It'll be okay," Cho told Harry when she finished the story. "Someone's going to get him, they'll kill him and capture all the Death Eaters. And he's not going to go near you with Raides around."  
  
"No good," said Harry, staring blankly. "He should have died twice already. Everyone knows Voldemort tried to make himself immortal. He's probably done it. Raides, if you're so powerful," he went on, shrugging Cho off his shoulders, "why don't you just kill him?"  
  
"No good," said Raides. "I have no more power in this form than the average sewer rat unless my owner -- you -- has the mark of ancients. And good luck. I may have lost most of my memory but I remember that as safety measure, no one but the ancients can use me like this."  
  
"Oh that's comforting," said Harry angrily. "You're coming to the Fire Quidditch game like that and I'm just a sitting duck?"  
  
"No one knows this except yourselves," said Raides timidly, which sounded very strange coming from a fierce-looking animal.  
  
Harry sat up and plopped himself on his bed. Cho tried to hold him again but he shrugged her off.  
  
"Wait, weren't you the staff used to make the mark of ancients in the first place?" said Harry, turning to Raides.  
  
"Yes," she said, her face screwed up in confusion. There was a moment's pause, and then, "No," she added, catching on. "They had a special place to do it where there was just a lot of magic in the air. I can't feel enough to do it -- anywhere -- and they were lucky it worked there. It's immensely more complex than even Clades Ultimus."  
  
"She's right," said Cho. "Just don't tell anyone, and... Look, if you're going to act like that, I'm going straight back home," she added, annoyed at Harry's silence. She wasn't really planning on it, but it had the effect she wanted.  
  
"Okay, okay..."  
  
"If Dumbledore said you're going to see them again... I trust him, and so should you."  
  
"He doesn't mean when Voldemort kills me this year, does he?" Cho glared menacingly at him. "Sorry..."  
  
"How about we talk about something else," said Raides cheerfully, clapping her paws together.  
  
To everyone's great relief, Harry smiled, and said, "Dudley got a Hogwarts acceptance letter."  
  
"WHAT?" Cho bellowed.  
  
"QUIET DOWN IN THERE!" boomed Aunt Marge.  
  
"OH, SHUT UP!" Raides roared back.  
  
Cho and Harry both glared at her but Aunt Marge didn't reply.  
  
"I know, that's what I said," said Harry, now grinning. "We need to think of ways to convince my aunt and uncle to send Dudley for at least a year. I overheard them talking about it. It wasn't the usual letter, McGonagall must have tailored it. She suggested that he go for at least a year to see if he likes it. He accidently changed the grade on a paper at school once from one to one-hundred right under a teacher's nose. I lied and said they teach you how to control it."  
  
"An excellent conversation," said Raides.  
  
"GO TO BED!" they heard Aunt Marge boom again. Raides took a deep breath as if to yell so loud it would make them go deaf. Immediately, Harry and Cho clamped their hands around her jaw. "I detest that woman," she said when Harry and Cho let go.  
  
"Don't worry," Harry said. "One way or another, after this year, I won't be here anymore."  
  
"You sound so sure everything's going to be okay after this year," said Cho nervously.  
  
"I'm not sure," Harry assured her. "I'm --"  
  
"How about we all follow Aunt Marge's advice," Raides interrupted, "eh?"  
  
Harry didn't feel much like sleeping. He had a burning feeling Voldemort was going to kill him in his sleep and after a moment's hesitation, voiced this to Cho and Raides.  
  
"Don't you know by now?" Raides said with an air of superiority. "You're protected by the Fidelius Charm. It's just as complex to perform for wizards as the mark of ancients spell is for the ancients. Voldemort could be looking into your window and not see you. Hell, the Fidelius Charm IS ancient magic."  
  
Harry's mouth fell open.  
  
"Yes, now with that lovely expression on your face, will you go to sleep?"  
  
Dumbledore had sent Harry an owl letting him know he could practice Quidditch in a paddock the Weasley's owned. Harry would have to stay under the watch of Mr. or Mrs. Weasley...  
  
Ron Weasley had several brothers, all five of whom had graduated Hogwarts, and one sister, Ginny, who was a year below Ron. Ginny, unfortunately, had a crush on Harry ever since they first met but to Ginny's dismay, Harry's feelings belonged to Cho. The Weasleys were rather not well off and though Mr. Weasley did hold a job with the Ministry of Magic, the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, he was not paid well enough to support a family of nine.  
  
Dumbledore had also told Harry to just forget about seeing Mrs. Figg about handling his staff. The end of the previous year, Dumbledore had thought Mrs. Figg might be able to give Harry a few pointers he didn't already know. None of them, of course, expected Raides to be doing a good job of her own... That and there was nothing to it -- a talking staff is much easier to handle than one that can't talk to you while you're holding it.  
  
Ron and Hermione had also sent Harry an owl each over the next few days to say they had been sent their new wands. During Lord Voldemort's first coming, a group of wizards determined on taking him down had formed a secret group called the Order of the Phoenix. At the center of this Order was a phoenix, a magic bird, named Fawkes. Harry's own wand had a tail feather from Fawkes at it's core, as do all members of the Order of the Phoenix. They did this because Lord Voldemort's wand has a tail feather from Fawkes as well and two wands with the same core forced to fight... utterly refuse.  
  
This refusal comes in the form of a rare spell effect known as Priori Incantatem. One of the wands is forced to regurgitate all of the spells it has casted in reverse order. Harry had seen this and had witnessed Lily and James, among others, falling out of Voldemort's wand just three years ago, shadows of their former selves, only to have them disappear after a short time.  
  
Harry, Ron and Hermione had been accepted into the Order of the Phoenix just last year at Hogwarts. Ron and Hermione, not having had the proper wand, had been made new ones.  
  
August the fifteenth neared and Cho and Harry were no closer to convincing Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia to send Dudley to Hogwarts. They were, however, closer to convincing Dudley.  
  
"Just think, Dudley," Cho told him one day as Aunt Petunia forced him to clean his bedroom, "you can use a Banishing Charm to send all of your computer games from your floor and back onto your shelf!"  
  
Cho told Harry later that day she distinctly saw Dudley questioning the thought. Harry quickly sent Dumbledore a letter with Hedwig, asking when the latest day they could fit Dudley into Hogwarts' student enrollment. Dumbledore replied the same day saying right up until the start of the term, September the first. Harry giggled with excitement -- he would have all the time he could possibly get.  
  
Of course, they all tried their dearest to keep all of this information from Aunt Marge.  
  
"You don't know anything about these recent mass murders, do you boy?" she asked scathingly over dinner one night. "Right up your alley, it should be." Aunt Marge was unrelenting even in Cho's presence.  
  
Harry opened his mouth to say something but Cho was much quicker. "He doesn't know anything about them, do you, Harry?"  
  
Harry and Cho convinced Dudley to come and watch as Harry practiced Quidditch one afternoon. Aunt Petunia had to bring Aunt Marge upstairs so the three of them could sneak out of the house with their traveling equipment. It wasn't easy convincing Uncle Vernon but to Harry's surprise, pleasant or otherwise, Dudley had broken into one of his famous, fake fits of rage and he let him go. Dudley, at first horrified at riding on Harry's Dragonback, the world's fastest broomstick, under an Invisibility Cloak (a very special item Harry had obtained from his father), did little more than watch Harry play and was a little less horrified on the way home.  
  
The next time they went, Harry managed to get Dudley up in the air with him on an ancient Cosmic Two-Fifty Mrs. Weasley found in the attic. Though it was barely any faster than most insects on the ground, they were assured Dudley couldn't hurt himself -- that and it shook dangerously if you flew it higher than six feet in the air. The broom was nicknamed Cosmic Disaster by Fred and George Weasley, Ron's twin brothers who owned a shop in Hogsmeade, the only all-wizarding village in England.  
  
Raides suggested something odd one practice: that Harry ride her instead of his Dragonback.  
  
"What?" said Harry blankly. Dudley was staring at the Staff of Cybele like it had just told him to go lose another fifty pounds.  
  
"Yes!" said Raides.  
  
"How? You're not a broom."  
  
"I'm more magical than the entire staff of Hogwarts," said Raides, grinning. "Come on, mount me."  
  
Harry did as the staff asked but he felt strange doing so. He was sitting just ahead of where the tail starts and holding on somewhere in the middle. The huge staff extended out several feet in front of him. He felt rather like he had attached a four foot branch to his Dragonback.  
  
"Go on, kick off from the ground! I won't crash."  
  
Harry kicked off and Raides delivered. It was exactly like flying his Dragonback except smoother, faster and easier to control... if that was at all possible. He could turn sharper, for one. 


	6. Preparations

Chapter 6: PREPARATIONS  
  
With the Fire Quidditch game so close, Harry started to receieve... fan mail. Dumbledore had been sending loads of it to Harry and Hogwarts had been receiving lots of owls lately...  
  
Dear Harry  
Do you mind if I call you that? Is it ok? I'm sorry, I'm just a real big fan of yours. The way you caught the Spiked Snitch and didn't hurt yourself, I just fell in love. There's a picture of you hanging in my room, catching it over and over again!  
  
Love,  
Josephine  
  
Freaked out, Harry handed it to Cho, who read it, giggled, then threw it out. Harry opened one that had come from Sirius.  
  
Harry,  
Watch your back. I don't want you outside that house without your staff in your hands. I'm coming to the game along with Remus, Severus and Arabella. We want you to play but we want it to be safe. We also want you to win but that's another story. Have fun and don't worry about You-Know-Who.  
  
See you on the fifteenth,  
Sirius  
  
Harry supposed Sirius didn't write Voldemort's name down because he just didn't want to worry Harry with it. He was, of course, happy he would be seeing Sirius. After reading it once more, he passed the letter onto Cho, who read it, fully agreed with it and then stuffed it under the loose floorboards.  
  
"It's a good thing Dumbledore is smart enough to only send these owls at night," said Harry, cutting up Hermione's still amazingly-fresh birthday cake and handing a piece to Cho. "Who knows what the neighbors would say."  
  
They both giggled in silence. One last letter from Ron said that Ron's dad, Arthur Weasley, would be picking them up in their new family car at ten.  
  
Since they've been spending so much time together -- all day and all night for the past few weeks, in fact -- Harry's nervousness had died away completely. They had been friends for so long, and for so long, Harry had never experienced... this feeling. He still wasn't ready to admit to it. Someone had once told him what it was but he didn't want to say it himself. It was on the fourteenth that something finally hit Harry.  
  
"I'm gonna miss you this year, you know," he said over dinner.  
  
Aunt Petunia and Dudley all seemed to have disappeared from view as his thoughts wandered onto the fact that Cho had graduated Hogwarts the previous year. Uncle Vernon had taken Aunt Marge out to dinner on Aunt Petunia's orders -- they went looking for houses for Aunt Marge to buy. So far, everyone had been eating in silence, so breaking the silence must be good no matter what the subject, right?  
  
Cho chewed quickly and then said, smiling pleasantly, "We can still see each other -- I'm not going anywhere any time soon." Harry knew this, but he didn't care -- he would like to be able to spend his last year at Hogwarts with her. "Mom's finally listening to me and sending Dad back to the hospital, see if he gets any better."  
  
"You two have any plans to stay together?" said Aunt Petunia suddenly. Harry almost choked on his food.  
  
"What? You mean you're trying to talk to me without shrieking?" Harry asked her. Aunt Petunia gave Harry a piercing look then went back to her dinner.  
  
"Don't be so surprised," she said quickly, sounding slightly cold. "It's taken me sixteen long years to get over your mother -- and I'm still not -- but... Dudley..."  
  
"Oh, this is all about Dudley, is it?" Harry snapped.  
  
"Send him for a year, Mrs. Dursley," said Cho slowly, afraid she might get yelled at. "What's the harm?"  
  
"What's the harm?" Aunt Petunia repeatedly loudly, her voice shaking slightly. She clasped a hand to her forehead. Cho noticed that she had said too much. "Finish eating your dinner and go back upstairs."  
  
Harry caught Cho's gaze and rolled his eyes at Aunt Petunia.  
  
"The Quidditch game is in two days," he said. "We'll be out of your hair early in the morning. We need to leave two days early to get there." He finished the last of the tasty chicken wings and then tossed the plate at the sink.  
  
Cho and Aunt Petunia watched in horror as it flew across the kitchen. It would have shattered into pieces but it slowed down before it came in contact with the bottom of the sink. Harry stopped moving for a few seconds to look at what he had accidently done... or wasn't it an accident and it was just that he wanted to look angry?  
  
Cho put her knife and fork in the plate, picked it up (intending to just get away from the table and eat upstairs), grabbed Harry's arm and marched him up to his room. She sat on the bed Raides had magicked in since the first day. Harry sat on his bed, his back to Cho. She opened her mouth but Harry read her mind.  
  
"I don't know what that was," he said in a quiet voice. "It's almost like the mark of ancients is back."  
  
The mark of ancients was a mysterious mark that the very old wizards, known as ancients, ancients were known for. Harry found out that he had this. His dad, James Potter, was a descendent of an ancient. When no one had shown the mark for five thousand years, upon Harry being returned from the hospital, his skin glittered golden then glowed white, before disappearing -- this was the mark of the ancients. It had returned in full measure just two years ago but had to be removed. The mark is capable of being used against it's owner, putting them under a permanent Imperius Curse, one of the three Unforgiveable Curses, a curse which puts the target under complete control of the caster. Unforgiveable Curses land the caster, if the target is another fellow witch or wizard, in the horrible wizard prison, Azkaban. That didn't stop Voldemort from trying to control Harry... Harry guessed this was why Voldemort wanted him dead, but even with the mark gone...  
  
"Your skin isn't glowing -- you don't have it. Look, what are we fretting over," said Cho after she had just finished chewing (and she chewed still more quickly). "You heard what Sirius and Dumbledore said. You didn't really want to shatter that plate, did you?" Harry shook his head. "Right. So, you're just getting very good at magic, that's all."  
  
"Yeah," said Harry softly, "I'm just getting very good at it..."  
  
"Oh come on, Harry!" Cho said pleadingly, forgetting all about her food and putting it aside. "Forget about it. What are you getting yourself worked up for? It's nothing, really. Concentrate on getting England that Fire Quidditch Cup for a third time!"  
  
She stood up, crossed the room and sat next to him.  
  
"I don't know," he said, turning around. "First there's the bit with the mark of ancients, then we get rid of it. Then there's the thing last year with the Spiked Snitch, Professor Flitwick having to make me swallow a potion of Draught of Living Death because no one could move me and flinging Madam Pomfrey across a room like a Quaffle."  
  
Harry had quite a fright last year to see Sirius with most of his soul missing, a state in which it was safe to consider him dead. Madam Pomfrey and Severus Snape had tried a potion to cure Sirius but it backfired. The year before, half of it had been sucked out by a dementor, the potion pulling even more out, when Harry tried to rescue him from Azkaban. Sirius had been sent to Azkaban in the first place because he had been framed by Pettigrew for the death of several Muggles, the death of Harry's parents and Pettigrew himself the day Voldemort tried to kill Harry.  
  
Sirius was immediately sent to Azkaban without a trial and was there for thirteen years, up until Harry's third year at Hogwarts, when Sirius managed to escape. A longer story ensues... With the entire wizarding world believing Sirius to be on Voldemort's side, they thought Harry was in danger but the year ended with Harry, Ron and Hermione confronting Sirius, who was really after Ron's then pet rat, Scabbers. Scabbers was really Pettigrew, who had been hiding ever since that day...  
  
Pettigrew escaped and Sirius was forced into hiding until his name had finally been cleared just a few years later. Pettigrew died just last year. Having had his life spared by Harry from Sirius (Sirius wanted Pettigrew dead, Harry suggested Pettigrew go to Azkaban so as to not turn his godfather into a real murderer), he betrayed Voldemort and it meant the eventual end of him...  
  
"Sirius said you're bound to find out more things about yourself that might scare you but he also said you shouldn't let it bother you, remember?" said Cho comfortingly. "This is just one of those things. You'll find out what it is, just don't let it get to you. And don't you dare tell me it's too late for that," she added sharply, watching Harry's mouth open. He smiled weakly. "Now come on, you're still hungry. Take my plate" -- she handed it to him -- "and eat. You need your strength if you're going to kick the United States' butt again. I'll get something from downstairs or finish off Hermione's cake if your aunt put it away already."  
  
Cho grabbed some desert Aunt Petunia had out for Dudley. She spent the rest of the night coaching Harry into how to react should something else happen during the Quidditch game. The biggest part of this plan was --  
  
"So how the bloody hell am I supposed to prevent my hand from getting torn off, then?" said Harry hotly.  
  
Cho glared at him for a second before getting up and walking over to the Staff of Cybele.  
  
"What... ?" said Harry, a bemused expression on his face.  
  
"Here," Cho said, handing the so-far lifeless staff to him. "Let's see what she's got to say."  
  
Harry took the staff from her and as usual, it sprang to life and purred softly. Cho sat on the chair at Harry's desk.  
  
"Well, good afternoon," said Raides pleasantly.  
  
"Cho has some sort of strange idea you can help me with the Spiked Snitch," said Harry.  
  
"Harry," said Raides, staring at him like he was missing the obvious and had just asked a dumb question. She raised one of her squashed eyes provocatively. Harry nearly bursted out laughing at the sight of a fierce animal in the shape of a staff trying to look lady-like so she stopped. "Don't want to have a repeat of last year, do we?" she asked.  
  
Cho told Raides what had just happened in the kitchen and Raides squealed with delight when she finished.  
  
"If you can do that, you can do this. Here," she said, full of purpose. "Summon a fork from downstairs with me." A few seconds later, with a pop, a fork appeared before their eyes and fell to the ground which surprised both Harry and Cho. Summoning Charms don't teleport the object, they move it. "Welcome to the ancient magic version of Charms," Raides explained. "Pick it up, stare at the prongs, point me at it and say 'Furcilla Leviosa.'"  
  
"But, that's just going to move them. And besides, I can't use you, I'll be riding you. What... ?" Harry said slowly, that bemused expression back on his face.  
  
"Do it."  
  
Harry did as told, feeling this was pointless.  
  
"Furcilla Leviosa!" he shouted, pointing Raides at the prongs on the fork. Cho ducked for dear life as the four prongs broke off and flew in every which direction. One of them crashed into the mirror inside Harry's wardrobe and cracked it. Harry crossed the room towards it and waved Raides frantically.  
  
"Speculum," she said lazily.  
  
"Speculum Reparo!" said Harry. The cracked glass of the mirror sped across the floor, reattaching itself and it was as if there was no damage ever done. "The point of that was?"  
  
Raides didn't reply. Harry pointed her at the handle of the fork and put it back together with a glow of the crystal. "Now try that again," she said. "This time, without me."  
  
"Nothing's going to happen," said Harry flatly.  
  
"Oh really?" said Raides, smiling.  
  
This made Harry raise an eyebrow. Cho looked excited. Raides transformed into a lion and propped herself up on Harry's bed to get a better look.  
  
Harry picked up the fork from the floor and stupidly pointed a finger at it. "Furcilla Leviosa!" he shouted again. Nothing happened. He put his hands down and frowned at Raides first, then Cho.  
  
"Going to give up already, are we?" said Raides, her tail raised, a superior expression on her face rather like a teacher looking at a student as if she waiting for the student to realize something. "And don't point your finger at it like you're telling it to go to it's room. That just makes me want to laugh," she said with a straight face. Cho bursted out laughing.  
  
"Right," Harry muttered. This time, he pointed a lazy finger at the fork and said once again, "Furcilla Leviosa!" Nothing happened. He jabbed the fork with his finger and said it again. Still, nothing happened. "FUR --" he shouted, grabbing the prongs with his hand and holding the handle with the other. "CILLA!" He tried with all his might to bend the fork. "LEVIOSA!" He cracked it in half.  
  
"That's not what I really had intended, you know," said Raides. She changed back into a staff, he fixed the fork and she transformed back into a lion. "Not used to doing magic without a wand, are you?"  
  
"He's only been doing it accidently," Cho told Raides.  
  
"Only when you were angry or scared, right?" said Raides to Harry. "Do you remember in what situations you were able to do magic BEFORE you knew you were a wizard?"  
  
The train of thought in Harry's head derailed and crashed. He had only ever done magic before he knew he was a wizard when he was angry or scared. What was Raides getting at?  
  
"I -- don't get you," said Harry, shaking his head.  
  
"It's just like when you first learned magic. They only give you that silly wand to help you concentrate more. You're so used to doing it with a wand now, you forget that you don't need one."  
  
"Then -- then why don't I just try it with a wand," said Harry.  
  
"If you can do it without a wand, you can do it even better with a wand," said Raides, the corner of her upper lip curling with delight. "And besides. You're good. Everyone says you're good. You know you're good. You're really --"  
  
"Okay, I get the idea," Harry said loudly, his ears turning pink.  
  
"If you're ever without a wand," Raides went on, "what are you going to do?"  
  
"Panic and run like hell?" Harry suggested.  
  
"No," said Raides sharply. "You -- especially -- don't need a wand. That, and I hate to say it but you should try all you can to get even better, because, well... you know..."  
  
Harry knew; Raides didn't have to say it. If Voldemort was ever going to try something, he wasn't going to take his time.  
  
"Did the ancients need wands?" Cho asked Raides.  
  
"Ah, I don't remember." She screwed her beautiful, golden face up in confusion, evidently thinking hard. She growled angrily and said, "I just can't remember!"  
  
"Yeah," Harry assured her quickly. "Sirius said they couldn't do much of anything, but once they had the mark..." Cho was staring at him. "What," he said, "so I actually can cast spells without the mark. So what?"  
  
Cho put a hand to her mouth as if to force back something she was thinking of saying and stood up suddenly, turning away from Harry. Harry, however, had enough.  
  
"Whatever it is, I'll figure it out," said Harry at Cho's back. Cho didn't reply so he instead turned to look at the fork again, giving it a scornful stare. He squinted one eye and aimed his finger at it. "Furcilla Leviosa!" he shouted. Nothing. He pointed both of his index fingers at it. "Furcilla Leviosa! Nothing. He stood up. "You stupid fork!" he shouted angrily. "Furcilla Leviosa!"  
  
"At least he's trying," Raides whispered with a smile in Cho's ear so Harry couldn't hear.   
  
By now, Harry had all ten fingers pointed at the fork, looking rather like he was trying to make it float away. "Fur -- cil -- la -- Lev -- i -- o -- sa!" He heaved a great sigh, turned, sat back down, leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees, frustrated, still glaring at the fork.  
  
"You gave a good effort, Harry. Didn't he, Cho?" said Raides, slapping Cho on the leg with her tail.  
  
Harry sighed again, straightening up. "Accio wand," he said without thinking, stretching a hand out to his wand. The loose floorboards gave a quiver and his wand shot out of them and jumped into his hand. Cho and Raides stared. So did Harry.  
  
"You idiot," said Cho reprovingly, yet smiling. "Try the fork again."  
  
"Furcilla Leviosa!" Harry shouted one last time, staring at the fork, his hand stretched out to it. The tip of one of the prongs bent, but barely noticeably. Harry smiled broadly at his achievement, however minor it was.  
  
"Now you can practice all night until you get it!" said Raides happily. Cho didn't look too enthused. "But don't expect to be able to shatter them like you did with me." Harry nodded; he didn't hope to.  
  
They spent a good several hours. Harry was able to graduate to making the very tip of a prong crack off. He could easily break them all off with his wand but it was a much different story without it. Cho couldn't do anything without her wand. She suggested that Harry practice some more tomorrow at the Burrow. Breaking off four prongs from a fork wasn't so hard but there were at least twenty tiny blades on the Spiked Snitch... !  
  
The sun had been down a long time, the sound of crickets echoing off the walls, before they went to bed. Harry let Raides stay as a lion as she promised she would stay invisible.  
  
Before the sun was even up and the crickets were still chirping -- perhaps it was anxiety for the Fire Quidditch game, perhaps it was the thought of Voldemort -- but Harry got an unpleasant wake-up call. Breathing hard and fast, eyes wide like small tennis balls, Harry sprang up like a mousetrap from the dream once again.  
  
He took a quick look around his bedroom in Privet Drive, letting, hoping, wishing the dream with the flash of green light speeding toward him would stop coming back again and again. Cho was sound asleep just across from him and Raides was curled up on the floor like an elaborate rug.  
  
Harry pushed his bangs away and ran a finger over his lightning-shaped scar. It hadn't hurt him for a long time and that was something to be happy about. He then groped around on his bedside table for not his glasses, but the Order of Merlin necklace. Raides heard him knock over his gold wristwatch.  
  
"Harry," she said groggily, without the slightest change of position or even opening her eyes. She stuck her scarlet tail in the air and didn't need to say anything else... Harry's fast breathing told her all she needed to know.  
  
The Order of Merlin plaque did all Harry hoped it would, immediately slowing his breathing down a little and letting his shoulders slowly sink to how they layed naturally -- not several inches above their normal resting place. He layed back down and stared blankly up at the ceiling, his mouth still open slightly. Something in him wanted Raides to say nothing because it would be far too embarassing if Cho woke up -- he hadn't told her about it yet. But that same something wanted Cho to wake up. Lately, he felt like he could tell her anything and it was a very good, warming feeling to know that he could confide in someone.  
  
Reading Harry's mind, Raides woke Cho by tickling her face with her fuzzy, scarlet tail.  
  
"What," she said groggily, rubbing her eyes. "What is it?"  
  
"Go on, I'm not telling," said Raides, now resting her golden head on her paws on the floor and looking up at Harry.  
  
He apprehensively and slowly told Cho all about the dream in a flat, toneless voice. By the time he had finished, she had been sitting up and looking intently at Harry with a tear in her eye.  
  
There was silence while Raides scratched her ear with a paw. Harry thought it looked rather cute but it didn't drown out the dream. His mother's voice, "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead," kept repeating in his head like a broken record player.  
  
Cho closed her mouth, swallowed, opened it as if to say something, managed nothing but "I" and then closed it. She was, without a doubt, speechless.  
  
"Yeah," said Harry miserably. "I don't like it either. Look, there's nothing you can say or do," he added truthfully, noting Cho's helpless look. Cho layed down again and pulled the covers over herself. "I have to go help England win a third Fire Quidditch game," he said, trying to sound perfectly fine. "Better get back to sleep."  
  
He stared up at the ceiling, listening to the peaceful, light rain that had started outside, which helped to calm him down. Within a short enough amount of time, he had fallen sound asleep. Harry had been doing excellent at practice, but was his head in the right place? He would find out in a few short days...  
  
Harry and Cho tried to escape Privet Drive right after breakfast. Aunt Marge made some inquiries as to where the game was, how many hooligans were playing, what sort of parent sends their kids to watch and most importantly --  
  
"What game is it, then?" she boomed after setting down her glass of morning brandy.  
  
Harry and Cho exchanged red faces.  
  
"Quidditch," said Aunt Petunia to Harry and Cho's utter surprise.  
  
"Quidditch?" Aunt Marge boomed, her bloodshot eyes peering at her brother, Uncle Vernon.  
  
"Sort of a sport they made up. Kind of hard to explain," said Aunt Petunia flapping her hand in the air near her head, her other hand holding onto her mug of morning coffee.  
  
Harry didn't know what to feel so he decided on feeling relieved. He quickly swallowed the last of his eggs and stood up much quicker than he intended.  
  
"Well, better be getting ready now," he said hastily. "Have to get to my other friend's house because the location is closer to them. Staying there for a few nights," he told Aunt Marge who wasn't the least bit interested.  
  
Cho followed suit and followed Harry up to his room.  
  
"What d'you think that was all about?" said Harry, feeling his throat tighten. In his nervousness, he went to quickly packing a suitcase with clothing.  
  
"I have a strong feeling her own son getting a Hogwarts letter is having a good effect on her," Cho answered, looking at Harry's hair.  
  
Harry looked up at her and they both nodded, Harry then going back to packing his things.  
  
"What are you taking?" Cho asked him.  
  
"Everything. Quidditch robes, the staff, my wand... my broom," Harry said, glancing sideways at the Staff of Cybele, "...and the little bit of sleep I had last night," he added, muttering. Cho walked over and grabbed his shoulders.  
  
"You'll do fine!" she said, shaking him.  
  
Harry closed his eyes and rolled his head lazily, saying "Yeah, yeah... I'll do fine... If I cut a finger off, just make sure it's a clean cut down to my hand, okay?"  
  
He opened his eyes and for a split second, he confused the look on Cho's face for one not unlike how Professor McGonagall sometimes gives him. She's a very strict teacher at Hogwarts with her hair always up in a tight bun. You didn't dare cross her, though she was, of course, a nice person once you got on her good side... which was very hard. Professor McGonagall had a great talent for making her lips go thinner than lines when she was angry or looking at someone so sharply you could swear she was looking through you.  
  
When all was said and packed, Cho packing extra pairs of clothes for both of them ("Just in case!" she suggested) and also taking the time to neatly fold his Quidditch robes ("They'll crease! Do you want to be the only player with crinkly robes?"), they strode down the stairs and sat in the living room, watching television with Dudley. It was only eight-thirty.  
  
For the entire hour and a half, Aunt Marge walked back and forth, muttering soundlessly to herself each time she passed Harry. During the last five minutes, Harry kept peering down at his gold wristwatch. Finally, there was a knock on the door at exactly ten o'clock.  
  
Harry and Cho both sat up very suddenly and crossed the living room to the front door. Harry opened it.  
  
"Hello Harry, Cho!" said Mr. Weasley, a great, big smile on his face. Aunt Petunia immediately snatched up Aunt Marge and headed upstairs; Harry was grateful.  
  
It was obvious Mr. Weasley was straining his smile as he didn't like the Dursleys any more than his wife, Molly Weasley. She always flinched when you mentioned one of their names, not unlike how most people in the wizarding world flinch when you say Lord Voldemort. Mrs. Weasley probably wouldn't have hated them if they didn't treat Harry like something with green skin and twelve feet tall, carrying a club. Thinking harder, Harry remembered he had knocked out something much like that in his first year at Hogwarts. A long story...  
  
Harry looked behind Mr. Weasley and saw the flaming red hair of Ron and Molly Weasley sticking out from an equally flaming red car. Harry's mouth dropped. It was a red sports car that wouldn't look out of place on a race track.  
  
"You like it?" said Mr. Weasley, positively beaming at Harry. Harry, smiling, nodded. "A present from the Minis- -- er -- from the business. Dodge Viper! Custom built!"  
  
Uncle Vernon peered out the front door and stared hungrily.  
  
He usually graded people on how fast their cars were. When the Weasley's had once before come to pick Harry up, Uncle Vernon asked if they were coming by car. Harry wasn't sure if they were, and Mr. Weasley being a wizard, Uncle Vernon, he supposed, couldn't care less if the Weasleys had a Ferrari. Now that they did, he knew that it did make a difference but it was just that Uncle Vernon didn't want it to show...  
  
The only thing that struck Harry as odd about this car was that it four doors and four seats, not the usual two and two that Vipers have normally... It didn't surprise him.  
  
Mr. Weasley had a Ford Anglia a few years back and, against his wife's better judgement, bewitched the car to fly. Harry and Ron had accidently flown this car into the Whomping Willow at Hogwarts, a rather violent tree, when the platform to get onto the Hogwarts Express wouldn't let them pass. Platform nine and three-quarters lay hidden from the Muggle eye. You have to run straight at a solid-looking wall and you would pass through solid stone, onto the platform. This wall didn't let Harry and Ron pass one year, a fiasco due to a house elf intent on keeping Harry alive... Mr. Weasley's old car had taken up living quarters in the forbidden forest at Hogwarts. What also didn't surprise him was that the car was probably provided to them by the Ministry of Magic to see Harry safely on the train... When Sirius was suspected to be after Harry, much of the same thing had happened. Then, he minded. Now, he didn't.  
  
When Uncle Vernon finally looked away from the car, Harry saw the same old look of detestment on his face when he turned to face Mr. Weasley. He came to accept this; there was just no changing him.  
  
"Well, best be going now," said Mr. Weasley. "Got a long day tomorrow! Get your things, Harry."  
  
Harry disappeared from sight with Ron, who had entered the house, and went up to Harry's room to grab the box he packed and bring it downstairs. He had to pack it; last year he spent an entire two days in Quidditch robes but with Aunt Marge about, he simply couldn't leave the house unless it was in a purely Muggle fashion.  
  
"Good-bye," Harry muttered when they got back downstairs. Mr. Weasley accepted this. The first time when he hadn't, things turned ugly. "Come on, Cho," said Harry. Cho said a quick good-bye to Uncle Vernon, who didn't reply, though he was doing a very good job, Harry thought, of keeping the familiar vein in his temple from throbbing.  
  
Mrs. Weasley greeted Harry when she opened the door to open the trunk. And with a slam of the house door by Uncle Vernon, one last gape at the mysterious Dodge Viper and stuffing his suitcase into the trunk, they were off.  
  
Harry thought it was particularly quiet. At least until Mrs. Weasley piped up.  
  
"Go on Arthur," she said, sounding irritable about something, "tell him. It's not like it's not the reason no one's talking."  
  
Harry, suddenly worried, his mouth opening a little, looked at Ron, who merely shrugged.  
  
"Really, Molly, is it necessary?" Mr. Weasley asked Mrs. Weasley.  
  
"What?" said Harry loudly. "Is it about Voldemort?" Mr. Weasley nearly hit a mailbox at the sound of the name. "Sorry."  
  
"Heavens no, dear," said Mrs. Weasley. "It's just that, as you may have expected, this car is a little more than custom built!" she half-yelled, now thoroughly angry. Harry laughed. Mr. Weasley turned red.  
  
"Been doing some modifications?" Harry asked, grinning.  
  
"Oh a little more than modifications," said Mrs. Weasley, rounding on her husband like a hawk who's just found it's prey.  
  
"I -- er -- as you can see I -- but we need four seats!" said Mr. Weasley firmly. "And the trunk... Oh Molly, it was so small!"  
  
"They gave you a choice of a two seater, a four seater or a --"  
  
"Molly, dear, the four seater was junk," said Mr. Weasley matter-of-factly.  
  
Ron looked at Harry and laughed. The rest of the car ride wasn't as quiet after the bickering between Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had tapered itself out -- Ron felt free to talk without being snapped at with "your father keeps modifying Muggle artifacts!" Mr. Weasley didn't seem to pay much attention to the fact that he worked for the Department of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts at the Ministry of Magic. 


	7. Vacation From Privet Drive

Chapter 7: VACATION FROM PRIVET DRIVE  
  
After arriving at the Burrow, which took an extremely long time because they had to come using normal roads, they ate dinner. Hermione was there as well. Harry spent the next few hours practicing on bending a fork without a wand, even if all he could do was make the tip move a tiny bit.  
  
Mr. Weasley was speechless Harry managed to do anything without a wand and was even more at a loss for words when he was finally able to a prongs bend in half just before they had to go to bed. Harry decided, with Raides' approval ("MY GOD, THE THING TRANSFORMS?" Mr. Weasley bellowed when he first saw Raides become a lion), to just use his wand since he wouldn't get enough practice without it. Him, Ron, Raides and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were sitting in the kitchen, Harry holding a fork before him.  
  
"I'm going to lose my wand," he assured them. "I just know it."  
  
"Don't be so cynical, dear," Mrs. Weasley said comfortingly.  
  
"I don't go looking for disasters," he replied. "They go looking for me."  
  
Raides glared at him, pointing her scarlet tail at him threateningly. She shared Mrs. Weasley's point of view.  
  
"Ah, what am I making a big deal out of it for," she said finally, dropping her tail and resting her head on her paws. "But I still want you to try to do magic without a wand at school whenever you can."  
  
Harry put the fork back in the drawer and nodded at Raides.  
  
"Now get some sleep, Harry," Mrs. Weasley said, standing up. She cleaned all the dinner plates with a wave of her own wand and magicked them all back into the cabinets. "We have to get up at the crack of dawn to be there for pre-game talks and practice."   
  
Harry, fully satisfied he would be able to catch Spiked Snitch without some extravagant episode, along with "good lucks" from Ron's two older brothers, Bill and Charlie, had a good night's sleep. Ron's third oldest brother, Percy, who worked for the Ministry of Magic, had kept himself boarded up in his room ("I'm working but yes, I'll come. Just leave me alone!"). Harry didn't think much of it; Percy had always been a hard worker, if a little hard to talk to.  
  
"How are we getting there?" Harry asked Mr. Weasley the next morning over breakfast.  
  
"Well, Bill, Percy and Charlie are all Disapparating but as -- you three," he added, noting Ginny's late arrival, "haven't -- er -- passed your test, this year they set up a fire and connected it to the Floo Network. We'll be using that."  
  
Harry thought longingly of the day he could Disapparate.  
  
"When do we learn how, anyway?" Ron asked Mr. Weasley.  
  
"They take seventh years down to Hogsmeade during Charms a few times to practice. I daresay, some students don't do so well on the first try," Mr. Weasley said grimly.  
  
Just then, Raides came trodding down the stairs, looking for her morning breakfast, which included everything from spiders to troll heart soup.  
  
"Over there next to the sink," Mrs. Weasley told her. Then Mrs. Weasley sat frozen in her seat while the seven foot lion propped her front paws on the counter, clamped her powerful jaws around the bowl of troll heart soup and set it carefully down on the floor, not spilling a drop.   
  
Sipping it as peacefully as a cat drinking milk, she paused for a moment, yawned, and said, "If you want, I could Disapparate all of you to wherever you have to go."  
  
Ron looked at his mother with a sparkle in his eye. "Can we, mom?"  
  
Harry kept eating his toast and felt Mrs. Weasley's eyes on him.  
  
"All of us?" she said, her voice rising to a squeak as she spoke.  
  
Raides took one more sip of her soup, paused for a second and then said, without the slightest change on her beautiful, golden face, "Honey, if you think the mark of ancients was powerful, you ain't seen nothin' yet," and went back to eating.  
  
Ron looked at Harry eagerly.  
  
Mrs. Weasley turned to Ron and said, "Only if Harry doesn't mind." She didn't pay much attention to how eager Ron was to Disapparate. Harry then looked at Ron.  
  
"I don't mind," he said, grinning.  
  
"Okay, but that only gives us another hour or so," said Mrs. Weasley sharply. And then, to everyone's relief she smiled. "No, Arthur, we don't have to get up when it's still dark out now."  
  
Mr. Weasley turned slightly red and excused himself from the table.  
  
"Come on, Harry," said Hermione pointedly and standing up. "You will wanna see what Fred and George are working on." Ron was pointing his head at a hallway, evidently trying to give Harry a hint he didn't understand.  
  
Just then, a voice in Harry's head came. "Ron's got a point. Better go upstairs."  
  
Listening to Raides' advice, Harry followed Ron and Hermione through the hallway and up the zig-zagging, rickety stairs, leading to the Burrow's many upper floors. From the outside, the house looked so oddly shaped that the only way it could ever stand without falling was because, Harry suspected, it was held by up magic.  
  
"Dad's been getting up early so often now because of Voldemort," Ron told Harry. "Been giving him a hard time because he has to stay for so long these days..."  
  
They approached Percy's room. Percy, upon hearing them coming up, snapped the door shut with a wave of his wand.  
  
"They're giving Percy a run for his money, too," Ron said as they approached his room. "I'd like to see Voldemort come after you with that staff! Ha!"  
  
The sound of breaking china and repeated yelling echoed up the stairs from downstairs.  
  
"Mom's not getting on too well," Ron explained. "Dad's barely home. Having a grand old time covering up all of the stuff with Voldemort. He also said they wouldn't even let you play Fire Quidditch if we didn't find Raides."  
  
"That's okay," Harry told Ron. "I wouldn't want to."  
  
Ron's room was a shocking orange color. It was covered with posters of Ron's favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons, all of them moving and showing the players at their best. One poster that startled Harry was of the Seeker: she jumped off her broom to catch the Golden Snitch.  
  
"Oh!" shrieked Hermione suddenly, making Ron and Harry jump. "I forgot all about it. Ron, tell him what you heard!"  
  
They sat themselves separately on one of each of the five beds placed in the room. It was rather cramped.  
  
"What?" Harry asked curiously.  
  
"The Tri-wizard Tournament! Ron overheard his dad talking about it to his mom!"  
  
"Didn't they have enough trouble with that last time?" Harry groaned flatly, a dull look in his eye. Ron's eyes, however, were twinkling. "Oh, no," said Harry, cottoning on. "No way..."  
  
"See, Ron," said Hermione who was glaring at the side of Ron's head. "I told you he wouldn't want to, didn't I?"  
  
Ron turned to look at her, his smile slowly ebbing away. "Wasn't there a bit of a fight the last time you said 'I told you so?'" he retorted.  
  
Harry successfully stifled himself from laughing as Hermione tutted.  
  
"I'm leaving. Where's Cho and Ginny?" said Hermione, not noticing Harry's great internal struggle.  
  
"I don't know," said Ron hotly. "I don't have the mind of a girl."  
  
Hermione stood up, did an about face and marched out of the room.  
  
"I'm glad you finally came," said Ron. Harry could hear the loud slamming of a door that could only be Ginny's. "She's UNBEARABLE. Fleur stopped talking to me and Hermione said she knew it would happen. But then I laughed when Viktor stopped talking to her and she's been upset at me ever since. So how are you and Cho doing?" he added, forcing his face to a smile.  
  
Viktor Krum was a world-famous Quidditch player for Bulgaria. Only eighteen when Harry first saw him play, Krum was easily the best player Harry had ever seen and was something of an idol to Harry's friend, Ron. Krum played Seeker, the same position Harry played for Gryffindor.  
  
"Oh, great," Harry said, avoiding Ron's eyes and turning slightly red. "And I haven't blown my aunt up yet, either."  
  
Ron chuckled. "So how about that Fire Quidditch match tomorrow, eh?" Harry watched as Ron's eyes turned from a sullenness to happiness.  
  
For the rest of the day, each time Ron and Hermione ended up in the same room, a few words were exchanged and Hermione would stomp out, waiting for Ron to do so first. Only a few years ago had they gotten into such a big arguement. Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, had been framed as having eaten Scabbers, Ron's old rat that wasn't really a rat, but Wormtail, disguised for many years. Wormtail faked his own death (again) by biting himself and leaving the blood on Ron's bedsheets. Ron immediately pointed the blame on Crookshanks. It wasn't until Hermione found Scabbers hidden in Hagrid's cabin, which rested on the front grounds of Hogwarts near the forbidden forest, that their friendship was repaired.  
  
Ron and Hermione separately coached Harry, with Raides overseeing Harry's progress, on bending the prongs of a fork. Harry eventually gave up.  
  
"Look, forget it," he said dismissively. "I can't get any farther than making one prong bend in half. It's just not happening."  
  
Harry was looking straight at Hermione. He could see something very odd: her lips were becoming thinner and she raised her hand. Hermione then did something Harry never thought she was capable of: she slapped him. Immediately after, however, she looked positively mortified as Harry rubbed the red spot her hand had left on his cheek.  
  
"Oh, Harry, I'm sorry," she apologized, covering her mouth with a hand. "It's just... well... I mean, Ron and his -- I just want to see you do it..."  
  
"It's okay," said Harry, "really. Cheer up, Hermione. You two'll be friends again in no time," he added, not believing a word of it.  
  
Hermione was slightly warmer to Ron after this but Ron kept his "never talk to me again" stance.   
  
Harry spent the rest of the day going between Ginny's room with Cho and Hermione and Ron's room where, after lunch, Fred and George stopped by and annoyed Ron by Apparating in.  
  
"They've never stopped ever since they passed their test," Ron whispered to Harry longingly as Fred and George went to their room to get something.  
  
"You ever ask them to show you how to do it?" Harry asked.  
  
"My mom won't let them show me," said Ron, a dull look in his eye. "She said Fred splinched himself once and doesn't want me to do that."  
  
The first time Harry heard the word splinched, he had absolutely no idea how horrible splinching oneself could be. He since learned that it meant to leave part of your body behind while attempting to Disapparate.  
  
"George was going on about it for weeks, he just couldn't stop laughing. Fred said nothing ever hurt so bad and didn't Disapparate for two weeks." Feeling thoroughly jealous of Fred and George, Ron picked up a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans sitting on his desk and began to eat them.  
  
Fred and George came in just as Ron sat down again carrying something that Harry immediately frowned at.  
  
"They're selling like hotcakes, Harry," Fred said. He held out his hand and sitting in it was a miniaturized version of Harry wearing his Hogwarts robes clutching an even smaller Staff of Cybele. "They don't do anything, they just sit there."  
  
"I made one just to see if I could do it," George explained. "Fred said stick it in the front window. All of a sudden we get hundreds of requests." He grinned. "Can't deny the public what they want, Harry," he added, noting the redness in Harry's face.  
  
"Just don't expect to sell me one," Harry said.  
  
"We're trying to make an edible version," George went on, still grinning, "that puts a scar on your forehead temporarily but the best we can do is make your forehead hurt a little -- shame, really."  
  
Harry wasn't listening to a word of it.  
  
"Can you -- er -- show me how to Disapparate?" he asked George cautiously. "Your mom won't let you show Ron but what's stopping you from showing me?" said Harry, smiling innocently.  
  
"But you already know how, don't you?" George asked. Harry looked at him funny-like. "The mark of ancients. Didn't you -- ?"  
  
"With the mark, I could just think of doing magic and it would happen," Harry said. "I didn't have to do much of anything..."  
  
"Oh, so in that case, well, Professor Flitwick always said concentrate hard on where you want to end up and picture yourself there. You better close your eyes and get a good picture because you don't want to end up splinching yourself, right Fred?" George said cheerily.  
  
Fred shot George a quick, fake smile.  
  
"Honestly, Ron, don't try it until Professor Flitwick starts doing it. Just ask Fred how much getting splinched hurts! Harry's got a better shot at it than you do."  
  
Harry turned slightly redder.  
  
"Just try doing it across the room, Harry," said Fred. "Put your arms at your sides and point your wand down."  
  
Harry brought back the memory of the time he Disapparated with the mark of ancients to Azkaban. Sirius had been recaptured after he had escaped Azkaban once and was sent back before anyone except Harry, Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore knew he was innocent. Harry had attempted to free him, which worked -- for the most part...  
  
He closed his eyes and pictured himself three feet ahead of where he was standing.  
  
"Do I have to say anything?" he asked, eyes still closed.  
  
"It's one of the more complicated Charms, actually," Fred said. "But most people end up able to do it without words. Wave your wand and say 'Deliquesco.' Just make sure you're concentrating hard because getting splinched hurts..."  
  
Harry took a deep breath, waited a few moments and shouted "Deliquesco!" waiting any moment for a lot of pain. For a split second, he suddenly felt like he was traveling at the speed of light, feeling very cold. He heard the familiar popping noise which stopped the speeding sensation as suddenly as it started.  
  
"ON YOUR FIRST TRY?" Ron thundered.  
  
Harry opened his eyes. He was exactly three feet in front of where he just was a second ago.  
  
Fred and George grinned at him. Ron frowned.  
  
"Now try it without your wand?" Fred suggested.  
  
Harry walked to the corner of the room and closed his eyes again, this time picturing himself standing at the door. He stood there for a good minute, wishing himself to Disapparate, but nothing happened...  
  
"Well, I would have given you a free month's supply of Harry Potter models if you did it without a wand on the first try, too," said George.  
  
Harry clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. It worked! For a split second he felt the intense sensation of speed... but something wasn't exactly right. During the entire split second, another intense feeling was growing, one of horrible pain around his mid section.  
  
Harry had Disapparated but only his top half had moved. His body was sliced diagonally down the middle, thankfully not exposing his insides, just a slab of skin stretched across the separation. His upper body fell to the ground at the door and his legs and lower body were standing weirdly without the rest of itself. Ron was about to lose his lunch.  
  
Harry let out one long, continous scream that easily filled the house as Ron clamped his hands to his ears.  
  
"George, quick, get Raides," said Fred, a grave expression on his face.  
  
George bolted out of the room as Mrs. Weasley's voice echoed up the house. "What are you doing up there!"  
  
Still howling, now Hermione, Cho and Ginny having entered the room, Harry clawed his way towards his lower body. Raides entered not a moment to soon when Harry was about to pass out from the stabbing pain.  
  
"Harry, what the hell?" said Raides as if nothing was wrong. "You can fix that yourself --"  
  
"I DON'T CARE AT THE MOMENT! I'M HURTING A LOT, IF YOU DON'T MIND!" he roared.  
  
"Someone stick me in his hand," said Raides, having transformed back into the grandeur Staff of Cybele. Ron did so. "Repeat after me, Harry... Adiungo haec --"   
  
"ADIUNGO HAEC --"  
  
"Corpus semel denuo."  
  
"CORPUS SEMEL DENUO!"  
  
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had just entered the room as a golden glitter escaped the crystal ball of the staff and surrounded Harry's separated body. His lower body fell down and the golden glitter turned into a white glow. Harry felt himself being dragged along the floor (his eyes were closed and they were tearing madly). When he had been cleanly reattached, the pain stopped and the white glow disappeared back into the crystal ball.  
  
Raides transformed back into the great, golden and scarlet lion.  
  
Mr. Weasley stuck his hand out for Harry to grab onto and Harry pulled, standing himself up. Mrs. Weasley looked from one guilty face to the next and Harry thought her lips were so thin that they were going to disappear. He wished he hadn't bothered to ask how to Disapparate as he rubbed the tears of great pain out of his eyes.  
  
"I'm not going to ask," she said loudly and sharply. "You just be glad Raides is here." Mrs. Weasley was struggling to find more incriminating things to say but her mouth was moving without any sound -- it was rather like watching a silent movie. "Get ready for dinner," she said at last. "And now you know, good at it or not, getting splinched hurts," she added matter-of-factly, turning on her heel and leaving Ron's room.  
  
Harry rubbed the area where, just a minute ago, his body had been split in two. It still stung a little. Harry, Ron, Fred and George all exchanged glances and nodded in agreement: that was dumb. Hermione looked like she was about to say "I told you so," but kept silent at the look on Ron's face (but he was still clearly horrified at seeing someone get splinched).  
  
By the time dinner was ready, even if she still had words to say, Mrs. Weasley kept them to herself so they could have a nice, peaceful dinner. She kindly asked Harry to use the Staff of Cybele to conjure one long table into the garden as she knew the nine weasleys plus Harry, Cho and Hermione would not fit in the kithen. One white glow of the crystal conjured a long, wooden table out of thin air. A second glow, this time a grayish, made an equally large table cloth shoot out of the crystal tip and cover the table neatly. Then a third and fourth glow of the crystal had conjured chairs, napkins, plates, knives and forks.  
  
After finishing, Raides joined Hermione's cat Crookshanks in chasing gnomes around the garden. No bigger than a tomato but certainly hard for a small cat to catch, they were considerably more scared of Raides than the comparably tiny, ginger cat with a squashed face that was Crookshanks. Part of the reason, everyone joked, was that Raides was seven feet long with teeth to match... Out of boredness, Raides picked Crookshanks up by wrapping her long, powerful, scarlet tail around Crookshank's mid-section. She dropped him right on top of a gnome and, getting help or not, Crookshanks was happy: he sank his teeth into the gnome's finger and it scampered away. To Harry, Raides was rather like the pet dog or cat that he never had. Sure, he had Hedwig, but she couldn't talk. On second thought, Harry realized, Raides was a wizard's pet and not a Muggle's. He would still be just as warm to Hedwig when he saw her again; they had been too good of friends for too long to stop now. He wished Hedwig didn't have to stay at the Burrow while Aunt Marge was infesting Privet Drive...  
  
The very first thing that Harry noticed the next morning was that Ginny was actually talking to Cho and not making strange faces at her. That either meant that Cho had told Ginny that she no longer liked Harry or some kind of ancient magical miracle had been performed while he had been asleep. To find out for sure, Harry cornered Hermione as she left the table and asked her which one was it.  
  
"Neither," Hermione whispered to him. "Cho and Ginny are just starting get along, that's all, but all they've been talking about is you and -- no offense -- it's been driving me absolutely bonkers."  
  
Harry felt himself go red as Hermione walked away, Cho and Ginny running up to her. There was not a doubt in his mind that they were asking her about what he had just said.  
  
"Nothing," said Hermione irritably to them.  
  
Harry hid himself back in the kitchen, out of view of Ginny's eyes.  
  
The second thing Harry noticed that morning was that Hedwig had turned up. Harry happily gave her some bacon to munch on and opened her cage door, which she flew into immediately and, her eyes droopy, looked like she was going to stay there for a week.  
  
Mrs. Weasley turned on the radio for Witching Hour with the famous singing Sorceress Celestina Warlock while everyone in the Burrow dashed this way and that, trying to find clothing.  
  
"Better pack a small bag this time," Mr. Weasley was saying. "I reckon with two Spiked Snitches, it might last more than a day."  
  
"I hope it doesn't," Harry called out from Ron's room.  
  
In the living room, Mrs. Weasley was packing up small suitcases with clothing. Harry went back upstairs to Ron's room where suitcases for Harry, Hermione and Cho (who had already packed hers before she left with Harry) were sitting. Mrs. Weasley took the time to wash all of Harry's clothing overnight, insisting that he not go play without clean socks. Harry had gotten several pairs exceptionally dirty in several rough games of Quidditch at Hogwarts. Mrs. Weasley had to wash them with her own mix of a powerful cleaning solution to get the packed mud stains out.  
  
Cho was carefully folded Harry's Quidditch robes and was just about to stuff them in the suitcase when Harry noticed that someone had done a bit of knitting. He swiped it out of her hands and turned, frowning at the back of it.  
  
"All of the players last year -- and the year before -- had it on their robes. You were the only one without!" Cho said.  
  
"That's nice," said Harry sarcastically, placing it on Cho's outstretched hands. She had knit Harry's last name in gold on the top of the back of his Quidditch cloak.  
  
"Raides helped me," Cho admitted, smiling. Harry rolled his eyes and turned away as Cho re-folded it stuffed and it into the suitcase. All Harry cared about was making sure that he took his Order of Merlin necklace and Phoenix Bracelet, both of which he was wearing so there was no problem there.  
  
Mrs. Weasley, unlike the last few Quidditch games, was going to this one. As much as she didn't like to have to leave the house for an entire day, for she had become quite fond of it, Raides assured her nothing was going to break. Raides had made a deal with the ghoul that haunted the attic that, if it was good, she would show Harry how to cast the ghoul away to the nearest graveyard where it could haunt the dead in peace and he did break something, she was going to show Harry how to very painfully kill it ("Clades Ultimus," she whispered in Harry's ear). The Weasleys were grateful. Not only was the ghoul annoying -- and it had been there for as long as Harry ever knew -- but it frequently dropped something when it felt the house was getting too quiet.  
  
"Mom, what did you do!" came Ron's angry voice.  
  
Harry slipped down the stairs as Mrs. Weasley came half-running in the opposite direction.  
  
Mr. Weasley was peacefully listening to the radio while the rest of the Weasleys hustled and bustled. They had still managed to be running late even though Harry would be Disapparating them with the Staff of Cybele. Mr. Weasley quietly suggested it was the fault of his wife's for suggesting they eat breakfast and get up an entire two hours later than they would have had they not been Disapparating. Mrs. Weasley liked to suggest it was Mr. Weasley's fault for suggesting they wait till morning to pack their bags. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Cho, Ginny, Fred and George all agreed it was both of their faults.  
  
"We interrupt Witching Hour for a terrible, breaking news," came the radio announcer, cutting a wonderful song from Celestina short. Everyone in the Burrow came running into the living room. "The Dark Mark, infamous symbol of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, was casted into the sky for the second time in sixteen years," the announcer went on gravely. "While He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had been preying on Muggles since his third coming, we now bring the news that the Dark Mark had been casted over the house of the Ministry of Magic's Head of the Department of the Courts, Vindus Diogo --"  
  
"I should feel bad," said Mr. Weasley, staring blankly at the radio, "but for him, I just can't..." He felt himself sink into the couch behind him out of sorrow, regardless of how much resentment he had for Vindus.  
  
Harry had met someone named Vindus -- and he could only guess that it was the same Vindus as no one had mentioned his last name -- only two years ago and he firmly agreed with Mr. Weasley. Harry had been brought before Vindus for conviction of a murder which had been done without Harry having had control of his own body. He had been under the partial control of Voldemort and had casted the most deadly spell known to wizard-kind: Clades Ultimus. This accidental spell had literally exploded the body of one Colin Creevey, a then-fourth year who idolized Harry. Harry had felt exceptionally terrible for a long time afterwards and Vindus did not make the situation any better.  
  
"Mr. Diogo had been at work at the time," said the radio announcer. "It is known that several Death Eaters had ruthlessly killed his wife and three children... Like all that was the work of the Death Eaters, this was just random... Mr. Diogo is now staying with a close relative, as the house had been destroyed --"  
  
"Now you're starting to see why we call him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and not... well, you-know-what," said Mr. Weasley firmly, still looking at the radio. He shook his head quickly for a brief moment as if to let a bad thought tumble out of it.  
  
"Voldemort," Ron muttered under his breath. Mr. Weasley didn't hear but Harry, Hermione, Ginny and Cho did.  
  
It would appear to Harry that Hermione and Ron had gotten over calling Voldemort He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in their six years of knowing Harry but, it seemed, that Ginny and Cho had not.  
  
When the radio announcer had finished his report, concluding with Vindus' enourmous yearly salary and determination to put Voldemort to rest, everyone in the Burrow slowly went back to finishing up their packing.  
  
At long last, everyone had finished packing and confirmed with Mrs. Weasley, who seemed to be spearheading Operation: Pack, that they were ready.  
  
"Raides!" called Harry. "We're ready!"  
  
The beautiful lion came striding out of the garden, closely followed by her new friend, Crookshanks and a terrified gnome held high in the air by her golden tail.  
  
"You called?" said Raides.  
  
"Yeah," Harry said. "Time to Disapparate. We're good to go."  
  
"Oh," said Raides, sounding disappointed. "Just when I was about to teach this one a lesson," she added, waving the gnome held by her tail this way and that.  
  
"I'm leaving Hedwig's cage open, Harry!" Mrs. Weasley yelled from all the way upstairs. "So she can go in and out as she pleases!"  
  
"She'll be fine!" Harry yelled back. "Just make sure her water tray is full!"  
  
Everyone, all twelve of them, grabbed their suitcases and stood in the living room. Bill, Charlie and Percy goggled at Raides as she transformed back into the Staff of Cybele and Harry picked her up, the tail wagging merrily in the breeze of the open back door. Mrs. Weasley ordered her husband to close it.  
  
"I filled it up just this morning," she then told Harry.  
  
The crystal of the staff disappeared and the tiny lion's mouth moved to speak. "You all have to hold onto someone else. This works just like a Portkey. Harry remembers multi-person Disapparation, I'm sure," said the staff with a grin. Harry had his first encounter with what Raides called multi-person Disapparation accidently with the mark of ancients. He had quickly learned it was ancient magic, and that no one in several thousand years had ever done it.  
  
"Do exactly as you did when you tried to Disapparate with your wand, except don't worry about getting splinched," Raides explained.As it was the easiest thing to do, the whole lot of them held hands, Cho taking the opportunity to grab onto Harry's shoulder as one of his hands was clutching the Staff of Cybele, the other, his suitcase. "Actually, I'm not sure you need to hold on to each other, just that I think it makes doing it easier."  
  
"Everyone ready?" Harry asked.  
  
"Yes," said Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Percy and Hermione. "It's the wood at the moor, Harry," Mr. Weasley added.  
  
"Deliquesco!" Harry shouted.  
  
There was a flash of blue lightning, a hoot of Hedwig, a screech of Ginny and the last thing Harry saw before leaving the Burrow was the entire staff of Cybele glowing an ominous blue.  
  
He felt nothing like he did when he Disapparated with his wand. It was clean, like he was simply picked up from the Burrow and dropped at the woods in the moor, like he was one place and then another, with no transition in between other than a sudden change of scenery.  
  
There were a bunch of wizards Harry didn't know goggling at him, their eyes performing the familiar flick up to the scar on his forehead. Then, if possible, their mouths opened even wider at the sight of the Staff of Cybele.  
  
"What," growled Raides, clearly annoyed as she transformed into the great lion. She positioned herself in front of Harry, so tall that the top of her beautiful, golden head grazed Harry's chin.  
  
The Weasleys, Harry, Hermione and Cho giggled at the looks of extreme distress on the wizards' faces. Still open-mouthed, the pack of wizards strode out of the wood. Harry supposed that they would have asked for an autograph, but Raides scared them away.  
  
"This way," said Mr. Weasley, following the distressed wizards.  
  
They knew Harry was following them but with the sight of Raides still fresh on their minds, they didn't dare turn around. Harry giggled for the entire walk across the moor -- about twenty minutes -- populated with tents of all sizes and shapes -- literally -- until they reached a wizard in tartan robes of orange and white and a ridiculous top hat sitting in a chair with a box full of black balls and a white dot next to him. Quite a few heads turned to stare at Raides and, for once, not the scar on Harry's forehead.  
  
"Hello, Mundungus," said Mr. Weasley.  
  
Mundungus Fletcher was a rather strange wizard with a flair for bright clothing. Harry had met him only last year and didn't expect much in the way for change. He was a colorful character to say the least.  
  
"Ah, such a good day it is, Arthur," said Mr. Fletcher. "Ah! Harry! So nice to see you again. And who is your rather, er --"  
  
"Raides," said Raides in her usual growl. "Commonly known as the Staff of Cybele."  
  
Mr. Fletcher stared for quite a while, watching Raides wave her tail merrily in the air, before Mr. Weasley interrupted him impatiently with, "Can we go find our camp site now, Mundungus?"  
  
"Oh yes, of course, of course," he said, snapping out of it and grabbing one of the black balls out of the box next to him.  
  
"Now we have to walk all the way back," Ron muttered.  
  
Mr. Fletcher tapped the black ball with his wand and the white dot quickly moved around the surface of the ball, pointing in a direction. Harry knew this better as a wizard's compass. The white dot pointed in the direction you were supposed to go and when you were at your location, the white dot pointed straight up.  
  
"My goodness, it looks like we're going to end up in the same place again -- wait, no, we're on the other side this time," said Mr. Weasley.  
  
As far as the eye could see, there were tents decorated in the colors of each country. Of course, you couldn't tell them apart because both countries used red, white and blue. What helped to distinguish was the flag raised above several of the tents but not all. After five minutes of walking, Ginny complained of being tired. Raides happily let Ginny ride on her back.  
  
Perhaps it was the loud cheering of people yelling themselves hoarse as Harry passed by them, perhaps it was the boos from the United States' fans, but Harry couldn't stop grinning. Excitement was flooding through him, excitement only brought on by a coming Fire Quidditch game.  
  
This was only his third but he had made quite a name for himself in just two games. The only thing he didn't like were the few posters of his hand with a lightning bolt extending out from it to the Spiked Snitch. Last year he had disabled the blades of Spiked Snitch by accidently calling a lightning bolt through his fingers and blasting them off. The tremendous surprise, as no one had commanded lightning for thousands of years, had sent the entire Quidditch field into silence until Dumbledore had started clapping. Just the year before, he had the mark of ancients and removed the blades with a simple charm. It was the episode last year that made him most famous in the Fire Quidditch world. They all joked the entire time about how badly the United States was going to lose this year.  
  
Arriving at their place, Mr. Weasley tossed the wizard's compass at the sign reading "Weasley" and both of them Disapparated with a pop. Harry knew that they had both gone to the nearest garbage can. Mr. Weasley tapped both of the miniature tents on the ground with his wand and at once they transformed into fully grown five man tents each. Harry also knew that these weren't normal tents, but magically -- er -- enhanced. No one was truly bothered by the extraordinary inner proportions which included a bathroom, a table fit for fifteen, three bedrooms with fluffy pillows and a kitchen.  
  
It was only noon when they arrived and when Cyrus Stone, team manager for England, a rather happy wizard choosing to dress himself in a stylish silver cloak and white robes, turned up at Harry's tent, he complained that they were late.  
  
"All of our faults," said Hermione hastily before Mr. or Mrs. Weasley had a chance to say anything.  
  
"Yes, well, I need to borrow -- galloping gargoyles, what is that?" he said, his eyes wide open and pointing at some space to the left and behind Harry. Everyone immediately knew that he had spotted Raides.  
  
She stepped out from behind Harry, making herself more visible and introduced herself to Mr. Stone who didn't believe a word of it until Raides transformed herself into the staff. Harry grabbed the staff, threw a rock as hard as he could, high into the air and casted a levitation charm on a twig, smashing the two together. The end result was the twig exploding the rock into a thousand pieces, showering a place some one hundred feet down with very fine dust.  
  
"Sh -- she'll be coming with you, then?" said Mr. Stone cautiously. Harry nodded and Raides transformed herself back into the great lion. "Take your broom, Mr. Potter."  
  
"We have a sightly different team this year, you might guess," Mr. Stone went on as they walked back through the woods to the Quidditch field, only slightly less intimitaded with the presence of Raides. The usual boyish cheer in his tone had gone missing and Harry and Raides knew very well why. He hadn't forgotten why Raides was with him in the first place and given the sheer volume of heads turning to do double and triple takes, he felt considerably safer. "We're keeping Wood. Great Keeper. He's been playing on a reserve team all year, practicing his butt off for this game. Miss Johnson, Miss Spinnet and Miss Bell are also still with us but obviously we have two new beaters, Madelyn Melfina and and Gregory Jungalavingi. Both top notch, excellent! Wouldn't have picked them unless they were."  
  
Mr. Stone went on for the entire twenty-five minute walk about various things including strategies and that everyone was now riding a Dragonback which didn't surprise Harry. He also said that their player backlist (affectionately known as the Injured Players' Replacement List) was full and that negotiations have been made with Paladin Hayden's International Magical Hospital for any impending injuries. He told Harry that they had a reserve Seeker on the list, one Callum McClay, that Harry hoped they wouldn't have to use. Halfway to the Quidditch field, Mr. Stone was back to having that old bounce in his step. Raides walked behind them for the rest of the way.   
  
When they did finally arrive at the enourmous Fire Quidditch field -- and Harry could never recall it rising so high in the air -- the golden glow from the stands themselves gleamed his eye through his glasses. Last year it seated five hundred thousand witches and wizards and this year was not likely to be any different.  
  
"The Quidditch World Cup stadium took five hundred to build," Mr. Stone said, noting the awestruck look on Harry's face.  
  
"I know," Harry told him. "Mr. Weasley told me. How many for this one?"  
  
"I believe it took two thousand. They had a hell of a time finding wizards to work on it!"  
  
As they approached the eleven gold and scarlet blurs in the sky, the team, including the five people on the backlist, were already at the Quidditch field. Just as last year, they weren't allowed to practice with the Fire Quidditch Bludgers, Quaffle and Snitch. They did, however, throw up four Bludgers and two Golden Snitches.  
  
When Harry joined them, it was pandemonium. Up in the air on his Dragonback, Harry had a hard time dodging Bludger after Bludger. Now that there were four of them up in the air, they seemed much more capable of knocking him off his broom. About fifteen minutes into practice, Raides made her voice heard, calling Harry back down. They had both completely forgotten that Harry was to ride her like his broom instead of his Dragonback.  
  
Switching from broom to staff, Harry soared back into the air, not feeling much of a difference except that he could turn much, much sharper. This gave him a much easier time dodging Blugers and after two hours of near misses with Bludgers to various parts of his body including a close call with his nose, the Golden Snitch beat it wings helplessly against Harry's fingers.  
  
"Wow, Harry," Oliver Wood, their Keeper, yelled from across the field astonished. Oliver had been a Keeper at Hogwarts for three years and a most enthusiastic captain for Gryffindor's Quidditch team, Harry thought. "Usually you get it much faster than that."  
  
"I know," said Harry, "but these stupid Bludgers are making it harder."  
  
"Just watch your back in the game because --"  
  
"I know, I know," Harry groaned. "All four of them will be tailing me when I'm chasing the Snitch. I've been practicing this time, though."  
  
And then Harry remembered something that he had cleanly forgotten about: he didn't practice a way of disabling the fiery Bludgers. This was no comfort but he told Oliver regardless that he had a way to take the blades off the Spiked Snitch. Maybe he could just try to avoid them as best as possible? But there were four of them...  
  
"Excellent weather they're saying for tomorrow," Mr. Stone was saying fervently. It would appear that since he had been talking himself silly, he had talked Raides clean out of his head. "A breezy day in August tomorrow. Couldn't ask for more!"  
  
Harry was extremely glad to see that Alicia Spinnet, Katie Bell and Angelina Johnson had been as excellent Chasers as they had ever been. They took the time to tell Harry that after having graduated from Hogwarts, they played in a regional team all together, replacing the three Chasers already on that team. Mr. Stone had spotted them during his travels around England and immediately asked them to try out for England's Fire Quidditch team. They happily accepted, fully confident that with Harry as the Seeker, they weren't going to lose.  
  
Mr. Stone joined them in the air, commentating on what they were doing. He repeatedly kept cheering as goal after goal, Oliver had a hard time blocking Quaffles soaring past him into the fifty foot high golden hoops. Harry had expressed his concern that Oliver was just losing his touch. It was then that Oliver insisted Harry take the Quaffle.  
  
After fifteen minutes, Oliver had caught every last throw Harry made. He was satisfied -- Angelina, Katie and Alicia were just that good. They took a half hour break for lunch and went back into the air. The practice wasn't stressing, it was just so they could coordinate themselves with one another.  
  
Sirius arrived with Ron and Hermione at his side with an hour of practice to go. Harry and Sirius took a good five minutes to say hello and when Ron kept staring longingly at Harry's Dragonback, Madelyn let Ron take her spot. She said it was because she was tired. Harry knew better. Sirius showed Harry the Daily Prophet from last summer in which there was a picture of Harry and Ron that someone had sneakily taken. Getting the Staff of Cybele was no easy feat and involved getting the front end of a Clades Ultimus, which the staff handily prevented from killing Harry and Ron. Ron had shared the spotlight with Harry for quite a few good months and it would appear he still was.  
  
Flying around on Harry's Dragonback, Ron tried to show off a few moves he had been practicing since before Harry arrived at the Burrow. This included knocking Bludgers into one another (which he only managed to do once). By accident, he managed to whack one Bludger with his club into another Bludger, which careened into a third Bludger which sent that one flying off into the direction of the fourth Bludger which by some miracle hit the Quaffle that Katie had mis-passed to Alicia and sent it through one of the golden hoops. For a full ten minutes, Ron didn't stop staring at his club like it had been bewitched and it nearly costed him an unfractured arm.  
  
Mr. Stone insisted that Madelyn take her position back in the air. She and Gregory tried for dear life to try and knock Bludgers into other Bludgers or into the Quaffle but simply couldn't; it was just a skill of Ron and the other Gryffindor team Beater, Kylie Randal. Kylie had a thing for Ron. She always giggled around him and Ron thought she treated Harry like a kid. To Ron's pleasure, Kylie graduated Hogwarts last year.  
  
It was practically sundown when Mr. Stone let them go. Sirius immediately walked over to Harry as he landed with a soft thump on the hard ground. He took one look at Raides as she transformed into the great, seven foot lion, opened his mouth to say something, made a squeaking noise and then closed it.  
  
"I get a lot of that," Raides told him. Sirius looked taken aback that she could talk.  
  
"You'll get used to it after a while," said Harry, grinning. "That's the Staff of Cybele. Her name is Raides. She can transform into a lion but the only thing is that, well, she can't use magic unless she's the staff."  
  
While they were walking back towards the tent, Sirius sloppily cleared his throat and managed to say, "Many people at the camp site are saying they think someone's gonna get hurt what with more Bludgers now."  
  
"I know how I'm going to get rid of the blades on the Snitch but I -- er -- didn't find a way to get rid of the Bludgers..." said Harry quietly so only Sirius, Ron and Hermione could hear.  
  
"I'm sure you'll think of something," Sirius assured Harry, patting him genially on the shoulder.  
  
"That's what I'm afraid of," Harry replied nervously.  
  
"You could always try what you did two years ago, you know," said Raides, which startled Sirius. Harry shot her a quizzical look and she raised her golden-furred eyebrows in a superior fasion. "Remember how you shot a shard of ice at them?"  
  
"But I had the mark of ancients... I tried that last year and it wasn't strong enough... ?" Harry said, confused.  
  
Raides grinned gleefully at the trees just ahead of her and then turned to look at Harry for a bit, still grinning. She was apparently proud of herself for something.  
  
"You're starting to sound like Albus Dumbledore," Harry told her. She laughed, her voice echoing loudly throughout the woods.  
  
Raides didn't speak a word when Harry asked her what she meant but he had this strange feeling that, as always, what he needed to do would come to him at the last minute. He tended to trust his instincts more and more lately.  
  
Back at the tent, Mrs. Weasley told Harry that Cho's parents had come to pick her up to stay at their tent. Slightly downtrodden that Cho wouldn't be able to see him just before he left tomorrow morning, Mrs. Weasley pointed out that the Changs' tent was no more than fifteen feet away from their own. Harry looked in the direction Mrs. Weasley pointed in and saw a rather mean-looking wizard glaring at him before disappearing inside the tent decorated with lightning bolts.  
  
A witch no older than thirteen had come running up to Harry with a quill and one of those miniature models Fred and George had made. She asked him to sign it but Harry laughed as Ginny shot her a very contemptuous look and she scampered away. Ginny's mother was about to scorn her but she seemed to think better of it when she saw even Percy painfully trying to hide a snigger as well (everyone seemed to think it was funny).  
  
"Told you, Harry," Fred sneered. "Like hotcakes."  
  
Harry scowled. 


	8. Fire Quidditch

Chapter 8: FIRE QUIDDITCH  
  
After peacefully eating dinner with the Weasleys, Sirius and Hermione, Mrs. Weasley hastily suggested they get to bed immediately. The general consensus among everyone was that this game was going to be far more interesting with the rule changes introduced since last year's. Harry fell asleep, dreaming happily about catching both Snitches at the same time, one in each hand but he was shaken awake by Mrs. Weasley at some time in the morning. He felt he got enough sleep but she wouldn't even let him lay there for a few more minutes.  
  
"Up!" she barked. "Now!"  
  
"All right... all right..." said Harry thickly, his face still firmly planted in his pillows.  
  
"And get changed into your Quidditch robes, dear," she said, receeding back to her usual, kinder self. "Mr. Stone wants everyone out on the field and ready. And wake everyone else for me, will you?"  
  
Mrs. Weasly practically ran out of their bedroom. Harry dangled an arm off his top bunk and shook Ron's shoulder as he had not woken up from Mrs. Weasley's barking.  
  
"'S matter?" said Ron thickly, not even bothering to move.  
  
"Nothing," Harry said, sitting up and jumping down. "Time to get up."  
  
He poked Raides awake, knowing full well that her morning growl and yawn was loud enough to wake up Fred and George as well. Indeed, Raides' voice rumbled the floor so much that they woke and sat up so quickly you'd think that they had been shocked with a bit of electricity.  
  
Fred and George immediately conjured curtains, opened their suitcases and took out a pair of fresh robes to change into behind the curtains. Harry left the bedroom for the bathroom, taking his Quidditch robes, necklace, gold wristwatch and bracelet with him.  
  
He placed the robes on the shelf above the toilet and his jewelry on top of that. He washed his face, cleaning it of the sweat that had accumulated overnight. It was hot outside, after all... or was it the result of that nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach? For a split second, while Harry was examining the wet bangs of his black, untidy hair, he saw something different about the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. After thinking how ridiculous it would have been for it to look like it shrunk a little, he took another look at it and was sure that he imagined it.  
  
Harry stared for a minute at his last name, Potter, Cho had sewn in gold on the back of his cloak and then changed into his Quidditch robes. Putting on the Order of Merlin necklace, his mother's Phoenix Bracelet and the golden wristwatch he got for a birthday present, Harry left the bathroom fully dressed and ready.  
  
Raides brushed up against his leg as he walked into the kitchen, following the drunken footsteps of Sirius (he had bags under his eyes). Mr. Weasley pointed at a box of Bertie Bott's Pancakes In A Second and Harry understood.  
  
"Eat fast, dear," Mrs. Weasley told Harry. "Mr. Stone's coming soon. We'll meet you on the field after the game's over."  
  
Harry wolfed down the pancakes and barely had time to stand up when Mr. Stone stuck his head into the kitchen, positively beaming. He beckoned Harry out and they headed back to the Fire Quidditch field. The rest of the team was clamboring around the field, stumbling over their own feet, apparently too tired to walk properly yet.  
  
"Come on, team!" shouted Mr. Stone excitedly, clapping his hands. He, evidently, had been properly woken up and not jolted to his senses from a sound sleep.  
  
Harry looked over at Oliver and what he guessed was true: Oliver was standing bright-eyed and attentive. Oliver had always woken Harry up in the wee hours of the morning for Quidditch practice ever since Harry's second year. He worked the Gryffindor team so hard one year, that as George Weasley, once a Beater for Gryffindor, once put it, they hadn't "been properly dry since August."  
  
A drumroll of footsteps made Harry turn around to see Raides come tearing through the woods and onto the field, some of her golden fur sticking up in the wrong direction from running so fast. Charging at Harry, she jumped while at least one hundred feet away from him, her powerful legs taking her a frightening distance off the ground. She then transformed into the Staff of Cybele while airborne, the speed of her run carrying the flying staff all the way towards Harry. He stretched a hand out, and, the staff tearing through the air at him, even Harry was amazed that he caught it without a hitch.  
  
"Right..." muttered Oliver to himself.  
  
"Sorry," said Raides, panting, the crystal ball missing.  
  
"Wait, that thing can still talk while it's a staff?" Oliver said, staring at the tiny mouth as it moved. Raides grinned at him, her scarlet tail blowing lightly in the wind.  
  
"Ludo Bagman, who you all know from the Department of International Games and Sports, is going to be sounding the gong for everyone to head over here in about one hour," Mr. Stone said, after everyone had finished staring at the staff. "As you can see, they extended the seats even higher up than last year. If I remember what he told me correctly, about six hundred thousand are showing up today!" he shouted exuberantly. Everyone was gaping at one another except Harry who was nervous enough with just one hundred thousand pairs of eyes looking at him. "They had to use very complicated Invisibility Charms to hide this stadium from surrounding Muggle areas.  
  
"Now, just to remind you, there's four Bludgers, two Spiked Snitches, both of which must be caught and are still worth one hundred and fifty points. If you fly as well as you did yesterday, we're sure to win --"  
  
All of their heads suddenly turned as the United States team, in their red and blue robes with white cloaks walked nonchalantly towards the opposite side of the field. They were carrying what looked like modified Dragonbacks. Whereas Harry's Dragonback had a black handle and fire-colored twigs on it's tail, their handles were painted red, white and blue. The twigs were several inches longer too and Raides spoke her mind immediately.  
  
"What are you lot worried about," she said in a half-drawl that eerily reminded Harry of Draco Malfoy, one particular wizard from Slytherin whom Harry hated -- a lot. "You've all got Dragonbacks and your Seeker has something even better. And no, Harry, not only can you turn better, but just trying going faster. Just -- er -- hold on tightly," she warned.  
  
"Can they do that?" said Angelina sounding worried and pointing at one rather well-built player with the name La Grange written across her back.  
  
She had absolutely no hair at all and shot them all a very evil look before turning back to her team. One of them, Harry noted, was wearing a cloak made, not of cloth, but of dragon hide. Another one of them had a mohawk on top of his head and a long, silver chain dangling out from beneath his robes like some monstrosity of a key chain.  
  
"They belong at a rock concert," Harry blurted out, "not a Quidditch game!"  
  
"I agree," said Callum blankly, staring open-mouthed at the girl with no hair.  
  
"Rock concert or not... it looks like they're trying to scare us into messing up!" Mr. Stone shouted defiantly. "We're not going to let that work, are we!"  
  
"HEY!" shouted one member of the United States team. This player had artfully, or in Harry's opinion, messily, torn his cloak and was sporting violently blood-red, dyed hair. The entire England team turned to look at him and when they did, he made quite a rude gesture with one of his hands.  
  
"What do they think they're playing at!" shouted Alicia angrily.  
  
"Oooh that makes me so mad!" Katie shouted equally angrily.  
  
The rest of the United States team joined in and was making all sorts of rude gestures now.  
  
"NOTHING WITHOUT POTTER, ARE YOU?" jeered the girl with no hair.  
  
This set a set off a box full of Filibuster's Fabulous No-Heat, Wet-Start Fireworks in Harry's stomach. He accidently tightened his grip on Raides too much and she growled at him.  
  
"Sorry," Harry muttered.  
  
"Understandable."  
  
The team captain was making no effort to curb his team's actions and, after a few minutes, he joined them. Harry's anger, along with everyone else's, only grew.  
  
"We can't do anything," Oliver said, slightly disheartened. "There's nothing in the rules about being a good sport."  
  
"Let's make them put their egos where their skills are," Harry said, his free fist clenched.  
  
"Yeah," said Madelyn. "We know how big their ego is, let's see how big their skills are!"  
  
"That's the spirit," said Mr. Stone proudly.  
  
There was a bit of a pause while England's team regained their courage. Harry had a small struggle, fighting to keep his free hand where it was and not letting it jump to the plaque dangling from his neck. In the end, he succumbed for a quick second or three when Mr. Stone beckoned them to get in the air, a small bit of his usual -- or unusual, depending on your point of view -- calm self seeping in.  
  
The two teams stayed on separate sides of the field, forbidden to play together until the real game starts. Each United States player took every single available opportunity to throw an insult at any England player that passed by them. Harry took note that the modified Dragonbacks were performing better than the unmodified ones, turning sharper and moving faster. This didn't give Harry any comfort as the United States Beater, whom he now knew was the well-built girl named La Grange, sent the normal Quidditch Bludgers screaming around their half of the field. She had bigger muscles in her arms than even Gregory, who was bigger than Mr. Stone.  
  
The United States Seeker, one Jeff Uder, announced to the entire field each time he caught the Snitch, which, to Harry's dismay, was more often than him. Maybe it was his anger at the team, he thought to himself, as his fingers wrapped around the Golden Snitch for the first time in the past half hour -- Uder had caught it twice in the past fifteen minutes, oweing largely to his broom's seeming ability to track the Snitch by itself. Harry watched as Uder had caught it again in under two minutes, waving his rubbery arms madly in the air, shouting "I GOT IT, POTTER! I GOT IT!"  
  
There was a silent agreement among all the players of the England team. Never had Angelina, Katie, Alicia, Oliver and Harry wanted to win a game more, not even in Harry's third year when enmity between Slytherin and Gryffindor had grown to a high point such that even the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw Houses were cheering on Gryffindor -- except then, Slytherin wasn't using enhanced broomsticks.  
  
At half past noon, when they had sufficient time to digest their lunch, Bagman walked, almost skipping, onto the field, calling everyone to the ground, with a small hammer and what looked like a miniature gong. There was nothing miniature about the ear-rumbling sound it produced when Bagman hit it with the small hammer.  
  
"Okay, team," said Oliver, breathing in a fashion that was clearly supposed to calm him down, but failing miserably. "They may look more dangerous and have better brooms... We know we've got the best of the best. We're not going to let them stop us. We're going to win!"  
  
The most Oliver got was a muffled "hurrah" from one player on the backlist, Jeanie Tidus. Regardless, each and every one of them felt a rush of excitement only a worldwide Quidditch game could bring. Mr. Stone beckoned them to the waiting area behind the giant hoops, the United States team manager moving his team towards theirs. The gigantic blackboard that showed the scores came to life and started flashing advertisements ("Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans - A risk with every bite!"; "Try New Bertie Bott's Pancakes In A Second - It's Instant!")  
  
Harry watched, his nerves at a breaking point, as the first of the hundreds of thousands of wizards and witches started to fill the stands. He didn't know exactly where the Weasleys, Sirius, Hermione and the Chang's would be sitting but he got an unexpected answer when Cho came running right at him.  
  
Cho greeted him with an embarassing hug, Harry turning a bright red, but he was glad to see another friendly face all the same. Causing Harry to blush even more, Angelina, Katie and Alicia all thought it was cute that he became more than acquaintances with Cho. They knew well that Harry fancied her but had all graduated Hogwarts before Harry and Cho... got to know each other better.  
  
"You should see what the United States team was doing during pre-game practice," Harry told her. "They were making all kinds of faces and nasty gestures at us." Cho made a face of pure disgust, her mouth hanging open. "They modified their brooms, too."  
  
"What, they're cheating?" Cho asked Mr. Stone.  
  
"You're allowed to use any broom you can get your hands on," Mr. Stone explained. "If they happen to have their own custom manufacturer in the United States... so be it."  
  
"I think their Seeker's broom is bewitched to chase the Snitch," said Harry. Everyone turned to look at him for his seemingly ridiculous accusation.  
  
"Bewitched to chase the Snitch?" Mr. Stone repeated. Harry nodded. "They certainly aren't allowed to do that!" Mr. Stone said loudly.  
  
"It looked like it, Mr. Stone," said Oliver, agreeing with Harry. The rest of the team nodded their heads in worried agreement.  
  
"Why didn't you tell me during practice!" shrieked Mr. Stone.  
  
"Because you couldn't do anything then, either," Oliver reminded him curtly. "They're not going to call the game off, not when everyone's already here."  
  
"That's the trouble with this setup," muttered Mr. Stone. "They prefer to keep the game as dangerous as possible and that includes not having practices between the teams beforehand. For the Quidditch World Cup, all countries must agree on brooms. For Fire Quidditch, since there's so few teams and they haven't had any trouble in the past, they don't bother."  
  
"Great," said Oliver loudly, darkly and sarcastically, doing a sort of anxious spin where he stood. "Just great."  
  
Harry felt an uncomfortable number of eyes start to turn to look at him until, eventually, all of them were.  
  
Before anyone opened their mouth, Harry read their minds. "I know, I know," he groaned. "It's all down to me. I have to catch both Spiked Snitches as fast as possible," he recited.  
  
"You got your wand, right, Harry?" Cho said slowly.  
  
"Yeah," Harry said, showing it to her and then stuffing it back inside his robes.  
  
"If you're going to try to go really fast with me," Raides piped up, having been silent so far, "just hold on really tight, don't worry about hurting me. Better yet, use a Friction Charm, Strigo Lapsus, so you don't have to strangle me. Just say Perigo Lapsus to remove it. And if a big chunk of my fur falls off, I'll be really upset."  
  
Harry and a few others couldn't help but laugh shortly which was exactly what Raides intended.  
  
"Welcome to the International Ministry of Quidditch's 1998 Fire Quidditch game!" came the booming voice of Bagman.  
  
Mr. Stone gave an excited squeak and Harry was forcefully reminded of tiny Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher at Hogwarts who was no taller than Harry when he was eleven. Upon saying Harry's name for the first time, Professor Flitwick gave an excited squeak and tumbled off the books he used to prop himself up.  
  
"Oh!" shrieked Mr. Stone. "That's it! Miss Chang, sorry dear, but you have to get back to your seat now."  
  
"Good luck, Harry!" she said, giving him one last hug and then exiting.  
  
Oliver had a broad grin on his face but Harry had a very good idea of what he was going to say as his lower jaw just started to move.  
  
"Not a word, Oliver," Harry warned him, unable to stop his face from staying red.  
  
"And there goes Miss Cho Chang, folks, no doubt visiting Harry Potter, star player for England!" Bagman boomed.  
  
Oliver tried to say something again but Harry silenced him with the Staff of Cybele rather than his finger.  
  
"Ladies and gentlemen, from the world over you have come to watch Fire Quidditch!" Bagman shouted.  
  
"Why don't they show team mascots like they did for the World Cup?" Harry asked.  
  
"Propaganda and money," explained Mr. Stone. "They run this strictly and the Ministry is secretly trying to keep excitement down for it but as you can see it hasn't worked. Mascots build up awareness and they can't afford to keep mascots, either. The teams don't have enough money."  
  
"Please welcome the United States!" Bagman went on. "Uder! Sebastian! Leslie! McMera! Ghesi! Jacobs! Aaaaand La Grange! My, they do look colorful and interesting, don't they?"  
  
Harry watched as they exited the changing room just opposite the field from him and rose into the air, a blurred mix of red, white and blue.  
  
"Playing for England, I give you Wood! Spinnet! Bell! Johnson! Jungalavingi! Melfina! Aaaaaaaand Potter!"  
  
Harry mounted Raides and rocketed into the air to deafening applause. After all, having spectacularly won two Fire Quidditch games so far does give one a high reputation. People were chanting his name, holding up signs. Harry took one look at the rude United States team, at the girl with no hair, the Seeker with messily torn robes and then at a sign bearing his name in large, lightning-blue lettering. He sat up straighter, more bravely on his broom -- er, staff.  
  
"Showing pure dedication to the game," said Bagman as all fourteen brooms and their players centered themselves on the field, "from Egypt as usual, our most excellent referee and Chairwizard from the International Association of Quidditch, Hassan Mostafa!"  
  
A wizard wearing dirty gold and brown robes came soaring into the air on a Dragonback of his own. He pointed his wand down at the enourmous box of Fire Quidditch balls and it opened, sending four fiery Bludgers (which magically caught fire as they left the box), two Spiked Snitches and one sonic-speed Quaffle straight up. The Bludgers went this way and that, the Spiked Snitches sped out of view and the Quaffle began to fall back down once it was a fair height above every player.  
  
"THEY'RE OFF!" roared Bagman as Wood shot back towards the England hoops and Katie blazed forward, the Quaffle clutched tightly in her arm.  
  
"England in possession!" roared Bagman. "Look at Miss Johnson go!"  
  
Harry watched Angelina closely. The United States Seeker, Uder, was tailing her, an evil glint in his eye. Just before he caught up with her, Angelina passed the Quaffle on to Katie. Alicia nodded at Katie and then it started.  
  
"Johnson! Bell! Spinnet! Bell! Johnson! Bell! Spinnet -- no, Johnson... Oh, I say..." Harry heard Bagman shouting.  
  
Angelina and Alicia went on opposite edges of the enormous field, passing the screaming Quaffle in an enchantingly difficult pattern where occasionally they'd skip over one of themselves and the United States Chasers would swear loudly. After about five minutes of fending off the offending Chasers --  
  
"SCORE FOR ENGLAND!" Bagman boomed happily as the Quaffle went rocketing past the United States Keeper, Samuel Sebastian. It looked for a minute like he had pondered taking his dragon hide cloak off and catching the Quaffle inside it but seemed to think better of the idea. And so far, Harry noticed, no one had touched the fiery Bludgers -- they simply looked too scared.  
  
It was when Katie sent the Quaffle screaming down half of the field only to be intercepted by the United States Chaser, Mike Jacobs, the one with the mohawk and eye sore of a chain dangling from his robes, did Gregory find the courage to send a Bludger zooming towards Jacobs. He did a most excellent ballerina spin in midair, narrowly missing a lot of heat across his back.  
  
"Oooh, narrow miss there and Jacobs drops the Quaffle! England's Spinnet in possession!"  
  
Thirty minutes later, England had scored twice more, the United States once, bringing the score to thirty-ten with no sign of either Spiked Snitch. Bored, Harry casted an eye out for the United States Chaser, Jeff Uder, and saw him slowly circling the middle of the Fire Quidditch field.  
  
"What d'you think, Raides?" Harry asked, looking down at the staff's tiny lion mouth as it yawned.  
  
"I think I'm going to need back surgery after this," she replied. "That's what I think."  
  
Harry laughed airily and said, "I mean their Seeker!"  
  
"Nah," said Raides dismissively, dropping the fake bit about her back hurting. "No contest. Look, he can't even handle his broom!"  
  
Raides was quite right. He flew sloppily, his broom bucking every now and then and Harry couldn't tell if it was that the broom was defective, or, probably the correct answer, that he was just that bad at flying.  
  
"Wonder if it's those holes in his cloak," Harry suggested.  
  
"Who knows... who cares..." said Raides airily, turning around on her own accord to Madelyn who just whacked all four fiery Bludgers at United States Chaser Jacobs, who was holding the Quaffle tightly.  
  
Harry heard him shriek, tighten his grip and then flatten himself against his broom handle, all four Bludgers chasing him resembling a jet of flame.  
  
It was an hour later when the score was at one hundred twenty for England, twenty for the United States did things start to get dirty.  
  
"Harry, ripped-robes boy, twelve o'clock," said Raides, letting out a cheery growl of near-victory.  
  
"What -- oh!"  
  
Uder had his wand pointing at a speck of gold some two hundred feet from Harry. Feeling the need, Harry shouted "Strigo Lapsus!", pointing his own wand at the patch of fur he'd been holding onto. And then he flattened himself against the staff handle.  
  
The speed was incredible.  
  
The mere light breeze was turned into a force of wind so powerful, flapping his hair so hard that it hurt as it whipped against his head. Harry could feel the skin making up his face being stretched back, also being whipped by the wind. Before he even had a chance to look for the Spiked Snitch -- and he didn't have a hope anyway while going so fast -- Uder had dived downwards to avoid getting many bones in his body broken by a speeding, out of control Harry. And then, fifty feet away from the field, Harry slowed down, turned around and rejoined his teammates.  
  
Oliver had missed two well-placed goals from the United States Chaser, Aidan Ghesi a few minutes later and the fiery Bludgers had been put into full use. While Uder had found the Spiked Snitch once again, all four balls of flame went tearing after him. Harry wouldn't disable them until he was about the catch the Snitch, it just wasn't worth it.  
  
"FOUL!" cried Alicia, who had just been whacked, not by a Bludger, but by the bat of La Grange.  
  
"Sorry!" La Grange said in her most innocent voice, not sounding remotely convincing at all. "Thought she was a Bludger!"  
  
"Hard to mistake something for one of these Bludgers," Harry murmured to himself. Raides looked up at him and nodded. Very soon it became apparent what the United States was doing other than trying to look intimidating: they were fiercly controlling all four Bludgers, occasionally swinging their bats near an England player.  
  
But they didn't have any time to ponder whether La Grange's newest attempts at giving Katie the hot seat had succeeded when Harry spotted a glint of gold and a spin of sharp blades.  
  
Not wanting to miss the Snitch, he gave enough speed to his broom to bring him quickly to the Spiked Snitch, immediately feeling blistering heat behind him.  
  
"Careful, Harry!" Katie called, the Bludgers having moved off of her and onto Harry.  
  
He didn't see it, but he could feel one coming straight towards him and on instinct, he did a barrel roll to avoid it. The Bludgers did all sorts at attempts at hitting him -- they were clearly much faster than last year, when they couldn't even keep up with Harry's Dragonback.  
  
Around the United States goal hoops the Spiked Snitch went, before turning sharply around and heading back towards the England goal hoops and Harry continued to perform acrobatics in the air. The extra long Fire Quidditch field would make the job a little easier, at least giving him time before the Spiked Snitch would have to turn again.  
  
"United States Beater Zoe Leslie knocks a Bludger off England's Seeker's tail!" Bagman shouted. Harry didn't bother turning around. "Was that supposed to help them or hurt them?"  
  
"Okay," Harry said to himself, not noticing Uder pointing his wand at the Spiked Snitch, too. "Simple levitation charm." He pulled his wand out, pointed it at the Snitch and no sooner had he started saying the words did he hear a resonating and ghastly "oooh" from the surrounding crowd.  
  
Raides turned on her own, pointing Harry at the limp figure of Oliver Wood on the ground, some fifty feet below. He was turned on his stomach, his limbs splayed on the ground in all directions and most of his hair had been burned off. Harry saw a big patch of charred, black and crusty skin, no doubt from a fiery Bludger having been aimed directly at his head. The burn looked so bad Oliver was almost sure to be dead.  
  
"Oh my. This could be a bad situation, folks.." said Bagman darkly.  
  
"He's right," Raides croaked. "That -- does not -- look good."  
  
"They've got medic witches surrounding him," Harry said, feeling the panic in himself rise. "They've got to be able to do something!"  
  
His back gave a panicky twitch, staring at a ghostly white Oliver  
  
Every single player had stopped moving, even the United States players, to watch Oliver on the ground. All manner of potions poured over the skin or into Oliver's mouth didn't wake him up. Harry's heart sunk from where he floated in the air down to the ground with Oliver. He did all he could think of doing and stayed where he was, watching, waiting, hoping.  
  
The scene intensified with more and more medic witches Apparating at Oliver's side, carrying armfulls of rainbow colored potions. It didn't look like they were succeeding with even Charms. Harry distinctly heard someone scream something about Lily Potter. Harry knew his mother to be great with Healing Charms. If only she was still around... and his heart sunk still lower. Mr. Stone could be seen running out.  
  
Feeling utterly helpless, a feeling which he never liked, Harry dived straight downwards, dropped Raides and then ran towards Oliver, thinking it might take away some of his helplessness. Raides transformed into the great golden and scarlet lion (to even more "oohs" of the crowd) and stampeded just behind Harry. They both skidded to a halt just before the seeming lifeless body.  
  
"Sorry, Mr. Potter," said one of the medic witches. "We're -- well, as you can see..." she said heavily. "But he's still breathing," she assured everyone, "barely..."  
  
Harry saw all right, but he didn't want to. The damage looked far worse up close, Oliver having so much skin burned, Harry could swear he was looking at muscle. One of the witches merely tried slapping him. Obviously, it didn't work.  
  
"The Phoenix Bracelet," Raides said suddenly and softly. "Harry, the bracelet!" she now shouted.  
  
"The... what?" Harry heard one of the witches say in disbelief.  
  
Not even bothering to try to reprimand himself for forgetting, Harry pushed his way through the medic witches. The Phoenix Bracelet held extraordinarily powerful healing magic that only ancients can use. It was quite easy to forget this, as he had only had it a few, short months. Bending over Oliver, Harry stuck the hand on which wrist the Phoenix Bracelet was over the grevious wound.  
  
The medic witches stood in awe as the fire that normally circled around the band jumped clean off towards Harry's outstretched hand and down his fingers. It turned a pearly white and glazed itself generously over the charred skin on the back of Oliver's head. Harry, wishing for nothing more than for it to work, paid no attention to the dazzling special effects of the bracelet and focused his all of his attention on the white glow. It was now putting color back into the black skin and turning it back to normal, non-scarred skin. A monstrous, white scab formed over the entire area, falling off only a second later only to be consumed by a great fire. The entire wound had been healed.  
  
The fire turned red again, jumping back onto Harry's fingers and clinging to the bracelet, dancing around the Phoenix Bracelet's silver band once again.  
  
"A Phoenix Bracelet!" squealed one of the witches, looking agape at Harry. "But, do those not require an ancient to work?"  
  
"Yeah," said Harry impatiently, "they do and you're looking at one, remember?" She tried to say something but words seemed to fail her. "Now what can you do!" Harry shouted at her and she seemed to come back to her senses.  
  
"Yes, well. He's perfectly fine now," she muttered as she turned Oliver over and then shouted, "Ennervate!" pointing her wand at him.  
  
He let out an almighty cough, spitting up bits of blood and opened his eyes.  
  
"Harry?" he said in the quietest of voices. Oliver propped himself up on his hands.  
  
"Looks like he's going to be okay, folks!" shouted Bagman happily.  
  
Harry did nothing but return Oliver's weak smile and then stand up. He was just glad Oliver hadn't died; the situation looked scarily close to that.  
  
"You're all right, Wood, thanks to Potter, here," said Mr. Stone.  
  
"I suggest we use one player on the backlist --" said one of the medic witches, only to be interrupted by Oliver.  
  
"No," he said hastily in a please-let-me-play sort of voice, getting gingerly to his feet, "I'm okay." He moved his arms and tested out his legs by shaking them in front of him individually. All seemed normal.  
  
That same medic witch gave a look so remnisicient of Madam Pomfrey, the strict and dedicated Hogwarts nurse, who Oliver clearly still remembered, that he gave up.  
  
"Miss Jeanie Tidus," said Mr. Stone, turning toward a would-be attractive girl if it wasn't for her silver-dyed hair. "You're up first."  
  
Jeanie nodded and ran a finger through her long, silver hair.  
  
"It looks like they're almost ready to go again!" Bagman said.  
  
Mr. Stone and the United States team managers agreed they were set to go and then nodded towards Bagman.  
  
Fourteen brooms rose into the air once again and the sonic speed Quaffle was thrown high above them.  
  
Afterwards, the game proceeded like normal except no one could help but notice Jeanie wasn't nearly as good a Keeper as Oliver was. The United States managed to score many more times, bringing the score to an ever closer one hundred and thirty to seventy.  
  
The light of day slowly became dimmer and dimmer and as several people left the field only to return with food, Harry spotted a Spiked Snitch that was apparently tailing him, mocking him.  
  
Harry turned on a dime and the Spiked Snitch immediately tried to escape his view. Four fiery Bludgers made a mad attack at Harry's head and he ducked to avoid joining the Headless Hunt. Once again, Uder had his wand pointed at the Spiked Snitch and at this point, Harry figured he was just waiting to disable it on his own. He concentrated on keeping the Bludgers from hitting him and not losing the Snitch.  
  
"Right, this time no one's going to get walloped," Harry said more to himself than to Raides. "Furcilla Leviosa!" he shouted, his wand pointed directly at the Spiked Snitch. Harry watched, victory -- or at least half of it -- in his eyes, as the blades of the Spiked Snitch gave a lurch until breaking off with an incredible force, doing far more than he intended.  
  
The blades of the Snitch scattered in all directions, one burrowing itself into Harry's left forearm, the hand of which was clutching Raides, and another catching him square in the chest. He swore loudly, swerving in the air, the Bludgers leaving him, and listening to the snickers of Uder who, Harry then realized, had his wand out to make that very thing happen.  
  
Blood was freely flowing from his wounded hand and coloring his robes a deeper red while a sharp, stinging pain ran up and down the area of both wounds. Feeling a million pairs of eyes on him and the inevitable breathless silence, Harry closed his eyes to keep the pain tolerable. He then wrenched the small, one inch blade from the middle of his forearm, causing a great deal more pain and then pulled the one out of his chest. Harry did just as he had done for Oliver to repair the wounds and once he was wound-free, but still bloody, Harry urged Raides further forward and, teeth gritted, swore even more loudly as Uder caught the spike-free Snitch, narrowly missing getting a burned hand.  
  
"UDER CATCHES THE FIRST SPIKED SNITCH!" roared Bagman to tumultuous applause from the United States crowd and a heavy sigh from England supporters. He tried his very to keep his personal conflict with the catch out of his seemingly happy voice. "The United States leads! Two hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty!"  
  
"No fair!" Ron shouted angrily. "Foul play! Uder did that! No way Harry would have!"  
  
"Nothing anyone can do, Ron," said Mr. Weasley, just as disappointed as his son. "They can't prove it. Besides, he's perfectly okay (bless that bracelet). Don't worry, he'll get the next one."  
  
"I sure hope so," muttered Ron.  
  
"There will be a thirty minute intermission before the game starts again!" Bagman announced.  
  
Harry didn't need to grab the Order of Merlin plaque dangling from his neck to feel any better -- it was the large sign that said some mighty rude words to the United States. Harry grinned and the game got progressively dirtier. With La Grange's failed attempt at accidently killing Oliver, Uder's successfull attempt at purposely injuring Harry and then catching the Snitch under Harry's nose, the American players saw fit to let their arrogance and egos get the best of them by the time the game started again.  
  
The Beaters cared not if their clubs hit human or Bludger and dived in all sorts of directions. Harry watched Uder closely, seeing if he had any sign of the Snitch. Uder would definitely be looking out for this one because if he caught it, game over, the United States wins. Uder wasn't watching Harry at all. At least Wronski Feint's don't work (a technique involving a Seeker faking having seen the Snitch) in Fire Quidditch: the Bludgers chase a Seeker if they're actually chasing the Snitch and not just faking it.  
  
As the game wore on, the Spiked Snitch hadn't presented itself and the dim light of day turned to dusk. Some people, but very few, could actually be seen leaving and still fewer coming back just to see if it was over yet. Many players were feeling extremely weary and tired, Harry included. He floated, dazed, over the heads of the other twelve players, Uder still casting an eye out for the sneaky Spiked Snitch.  
  
Bored and his eyes almost closing, Harry felt wide awake when the score was announced to be five hundred to six hundred and fourTy. The United States team had lengthened it's lead and soon, even if Harry caught the Snitch, it wouldn't help. He took part in watching continual rude gestures and words from the United States players, mostly from La Grange and when he heard Uder call him "scar head," he really didn't care.  
  
Gregory had heard it, too, and his reaction was much different. He grabbed Madelyn's club from her hand and whacked two fiery Bludgers at Uder. Uder instinctively tried to jump backwards, a very dumb move being at least fifty feet in the air, and landed with a sickening crunch on the ground to loud gasps from the crowd.  
  
Gregory clasped a hand to his mouth and dropped both clubs. Harry knew the Phoenix Bracelet had no hope of bringing someone back from the dead. Once again, medic witches quickly Apparated, this time right at Uder's side. Harry probably should have felt slightly more sorry but simply couldn't. Despite himself, he didn't want to see anyone die and lowered to the ground. Raides turned into the great lion and rode Harry over to Uder before turning back into the Staff of Cybele.  
  
"He's got many broken bones!" said one witch, feeling all over Uder's back.  
  
"But is he alive?"  
  
Harry stepped closer, his hand releasing it's grip on the Staff of Cybele all on it's own and looked down. The medic witches didn't usher him away, apparently expecting him to pull another miracle.  
  
"No way to tell."  
  
"What do you mean 'no way to tell," said an angry voice. "He's not breathing, he's dead! We shouldn't have bothered with this stupid sport!"  
  
A few people started to cry and the entire crowd surrounding Uder suddenly stepped several feet away, taking Harry with them. It seemed as if they couldn't bear to look at Uder. Harry agreed.  
  
"You knew there were risks," said a different voice, sounding very impatient. "And you agreed to it..."  
  
A few people turned to look at Harry and he looked back into their desperate eyes. He didn't bother asking what they were looking at him for. He well knew, but there wasn't a thing to be done. He took one last look at Uder -- and noticed something.  
  
"Wait a minute," said Harry suddenly. "He IS breathing!"  
  
The people looking at Harry turned their gaze to Uder whose chest which, quite miraculously, was moving up and down. One witch who was Uder's mom, apparent by the way she had been crying, said thickly, "Bless him! He's alive!"  
  
"Let's not ask how," someone said.  
  
"Good, because I don't think anyone's going to answer it," said a witch.  
  
"Oh hush, all of you. Clearly, he wasn't dead. He just stopped breathing for a bit, that's all."  
  
"Yes, come on, dear," someone said to the witch who thought no one could find an answer. "Potter, here, survived a fifty foot drop as well."  
  
In his third year at Hogwarts, Harry had fallen off his broom from fifty feet in the air, having passed out from nearby dementors. He had survived, partly because Dumbledore had slowed Harry's fall... Their terrible power, the dementors, was to drain any nearby human of happy thoughts, causing them to drown in their own despair and sorrow, leaving them with nothing but the bad. Leave them with a wizard or witch long enough and they drain you of your powers. As Harry has had awful horrors in his past, the dementors' power overwhelmed him time and time again, causing him to faint, listening to the last moments of his screaming parents. For a split second, he was forcefully reminded of his recurring dream.  
  
Shaking his head to get rid of the nasty reminder, Harry picked up the Staff of Cybele from Uder's side and went over to Mr. Stone who was calling his team over.  
  
"Okay, you've done a great job so far," he was saying, trying to insert the usual happy and boyish tone in his voice, "but unless someone doesn't catch the Spiked Snitch soon, we'll be playing well into tomorrow morning..."  
  
Harry, still shaken by Uder's even closer near death experience (as was everyone else) nodded shortly and in ten minutes, one Mitch Shachner replacing Jeff Uder, Harry was back in the air, circling a small area to keep himself awake.  
  
Shachner, while proving to be far nicer, also proved to be a better Seeker and Harry was tearing after him while the score remained stagnant for the past fifteen minutes (Gregory and Madelyn were increasingly aggressive, using the Bludgers, not to hit, but to divert). Not wanting to have a repeat of his last experience, Harry pointed his wand at the Spiked Snitch in front of Shachner and muttered, "Furcilla Leviosa," hoping it would work without him shouting it.  
  
And it did, Shachner turning around at Harry, who smirked back, to see who had done it. Just then, the four Bludgers caught up with Shachner, and, unfortunately all four of them were headed straight towards Harry. He plunged several feet down to avoid getting the blunt end of all of them at once and suffering a fate far worse than Oliver's.  
  
The Bludgers seemed to think Harry was after the Snitch as they turned around in perfect harmony and came pelting after him once again. Harry stuck his wand out and absolutely thundered "DRACONUS ICICLIA!" so loud that Shachner swerved.  
  
A small tuft of frost erupted from the tip of Harry's wand and formed into a dragon made up entirely of ice. Harry would have been shocked and frightened that it was a full size dragon, some fifty feet tall, it's arms as thick as small glaciers, if he wasn't so anxious about finding out whether it would work to stop the Bludgers.  
  
It gritted it's icicle fangs dangerously and grinned, looking like some sort of insanely happy demon. The powerful tail protruding from it's end was stretched out the full seventy feet and wagging merrily. Harry did take note of the claws on it's thick, muscular (if that were possible for a creature made of ice) hands that were as long as knives and probably sharper and he caught a small glimpse of the teeth in it's jaw and didn't scream. This last bit was surprising considering the front two were as big as his head and as thick as his leg -- he was too into the game to care.  
  
With one last grin of self-satisfaction at it's master, the dragon sent itself speeding towards the Bludgers and did a spectacular three-sixty in mid air. It's enormous wings smashed into the all of Bludgers at once, turning them into blocks of ice upon contact like liquid nitrogen to any other substance. The Bludgers went crashing to the ground and exploded, raining the ground with bits of ice. The terribly large ice dragon gave a deafening roar, mocking the feeble Bludgers and then exploded into a million flakes of snow. It's force so large, the dragon so big that the snowflakes reached every inch of the Fire Quidditch field. It looked like it had just snowed for a few minutes.  
  
Satisfied and not letting anything sink in yet, Harry turned his attention to Shachner who was gaining on the Spike-less Snitch, apparently not bothered by a dragon screaming in his ear. Harry charged forward, slapped Shachner's hand out of the way and --  
  
"POTTER CATCHES THE SECOND SPIKED SNITCH!" roared Bagman to tumultuous applause from England supporters and ravenous boos from the United States crowd. Harry distinctly saw someone fly over to Shachner and smack him on the head. "SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY TO SIX HUNDRED AND FOURTY! ENGLAND WINS! OH, I SAY!"  
  
Floating there, Shachner in a rage of fury, Harry took the precious few seconds before anyone had came flying towards him to let it all sink in. Oliver and Uder were alive, he had won the game and the fiery Bludgers had been exploded with a spectacular ice dragon spell; all of it worthy of the front page of the Daily Prophet.  
  
Harry couldn't see, but Cho's face was glowing with admiration. He was sure, regardless of being able to see or not, that it was. Likewise, Ron and Hermione were jumping up and down, clapping and yelling themselves hoarse.  
  
"I don't fancy telling them to stop celebrating," Bagman whispered, grinning, to Dumbledore as the England team slowly bumped one by one into their victorious Seeker.  
  
Dumbledore, who had been sitting in the Top Box, a block of seats centered in the field, with the Weasleys, raised an eyebrow, cocked his head and gave Mr. Weasley a grin that clearly said, "he's right, you know."  
  
"They'll be talking about this game for years," Mr. Weasley said.  
  
Percy Weasley drew a deep breath, raised both his eyebrows and let out a superior-sounding sigh, his chin in the air, trying to look as grave as possible. "Ah, you know Penelope didn't want to bother betting this time," he said, speaking of his girlfriend, Penelope Clearwater.  
  
"Wonder why," Ron whispered in Hermione's ear as Mr. Weasley ushered them down the steps to get to Harry. He could only guess that his ambitious brother was thinking of betting against his girlfriend to win some money.  
  
Mr. Stone had taken his team over to the United States team, the other team manager bringing his to Mr. Stone's, for a hand-shake, presumably so they wouldn't feel like hexing each other next year. La Grange's handshake was very harsh and she was eyeing the blood stains on Harry's forearm and chest. She seemed to like the idea that he got hurt, though didn't voice it and, all the same, Harry kept his opinion quiet that she should have been his ice dragon's target. Well, either her or Uder, it didn't really matter.  
  
During this, about ten wizards were cleaning up the mess of Bludgers Harry had made (they couldn't repair them) and fixing the Spiked Snitches, sticking them back into the box, not spinning and harmless. The Quaffle was quite an easy matter as it's only magic was to gain speed while flying in the air. Finally, after exchanging many not-so-friendly glances and handshakes, the two teams separated and left the field, the stands still clearing out. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Ron, Hermione and Sirius strode over to Harry at once, a look of utter awe on Ron's face. Ron's only words were "nice" and "dragon."  
  
"You're okay, right?" said Mrs. Weasley, seizing Harry's bloodied arm at once and examining it.  
  
"Yes," replied Harry. "If this thing can heal burns, it can heal small cuts," he added, referring to the Phoenix Bracelet.  
  
"Well, get changed then as soon as we get back to the tent. It's starting to smell."  
  
Every inch of him was still bursting with excitement when the sky had turned black as ink and Ginny was still going over and over Harry's ice dragon with a speechless Ron. Ron thought the ice dragon so cool that he hadn't said a single word, an expression of awe on his face for the past half hour.  
  
"Ron, your face is going to stick like that," said Mrs. Weasley irritably.  
  
"I don't think he minds," said Fred.  
  
"It was just a spell, dear."  
  
Ron's face finally changed. "Harry -- bloody hell!" he said, still amazed.  
  
Harry couldn't help it. He grinned back.  
  
"We all agree it was a spectacular ice dragon now will you please go to bed?" said Mrs. Weasley, still sounding irritated. "It's nearly two in the morning!"  
  
"Oh come on, mom," Ron said pleadingly back. "I don't think anyone has gone to sleep yet!"  
  
"He's right, Molly," Sirius said, peering out of the tent.  
  
Every England supporter had been bellowing, screaming, singing and laughing ever since the game had ended and salesmen were now coming around all of the tents, selling miniature ice dragons and, to Harry's great displeasure, Fred and George's miniature Harry models. These had been modified, of course, having a small Spiked Snitch stuck in an outstretched, closed fist.  
  
"No," Harry had said firmly when a salesman had Apparated at their tent a few minutes later and tried to sell Harry a model of himself ("Better than an autograph!").  
  
A few minutes after that, a wizard Harry had never met before came striding to the tent and asked Harry if he would let his lightning dragon duel with Harry's ice dragon. Harry didn't know what to say and so he turned to Sirius for an answer without thinking, like a son would to a father. Sirius noticed this and nodded, as he would have anyway.  
  
Perhaps it was the spur of the moment during the game, but when Harry tried to conjure his most excellent ice dragon again, he only managed to get one twelve feet in height and not the most glorious fifty-footer from hours earlier. Both of them conjured their dragons high above the tents for all to see and a small crowd had moved closer to them, many people leaving their tents to get a better look to see the fabulous air fight. Both dragons put up a good duel and despite the fact that Harry's dragon was so much smaller, it was able to move around much more quickly, dodging and taunting it's fifty foot opponent. Bill, Charlie and Ron were cheering Harry on the entire time.  
  
The unknown wizard then looked sourly at Harry as one well-placed lightning bolt from his fifty foot lightning dragon struck Harry's horribly frightened ice dragon between it's eyes and shattered it. Raides had scrambled to her feet at his words ("I expected better...") and growled at him. Having a sudden idea, she transformed into the Staff of Cybele and suggested Harry use her instead of his wand. Fully knowing he was going to lose, the wizard agreed to another try and this time Harry had managed to conjure a dragon so huge, it sent the unknown wizard's lightning dragon screaming and several people had shrieked.  
  
It was over three hundred feet in height. Ron didn't speak for fifteen minutes. Ginny fainted. Then, the roar it made before it exploded, making the moor look like it probably did after a blizzard, made everyone clamp their hands over their ears and that still didn't help. Hermione's glass of water had shattered. Mr. Weasley was extra glad the Ministry of Magic placed Invisibility and Noise Charms over the area for a Muggle would surely notice a dragon of that stature or a roar that loud.  
  
Raides transformed back into the golden and scarlet lion, still chucklingly merrily and Ron was now goggling even more at Harry, who didn't think that look would ever leave Ron's face until morning. The unknown wizard looked for a minute like he was going to introduce himself but decided to save himself the embarassment and stalked away. Ron looked desperately at Raides with a please-let-me-try look in his eye but she looked gravely back at him, her eyes narrowed not unlike Mrs. Weasley's. She told him that she could vaguely remember that the only time she had let a non-ancient use her, she ended up destroying an entire town. As much as she trusted Ron, she had been enchanted to kill anyone who tries to cast a spell with her who's not an ancient. Ron finally desisted. 


	9. The Legend of the Scar

Chapter 9: THE LEGEND OF THE SCAR  
  
Cho met up with Harry the following morning outside his tent just as he finished getting dressed. Mr. Chang, sucking up some of his pride, had walked over with his daughter to meet Harry.  
  
For a good ten seconds, no one said anything, and then, breaking the unsettling silence in which Harry's finger twitched convulsively, Cho said, "Harry, I'd like you to meet my dad, Jun."  
  
"Hello, Mr. Chang," said Harry awkwardly as Mr. Chang advanced on him in what, at first, he thought was threatening until he stuck a hand out to let Harry shake. He made a very strained smile, reminding Harry of the one Uncle Vernon gave when he first saw Sirius.  
  
Everyone noticed a change for the better though as the three of them talked about yesterday's events and how Harry was doing at Hogwarts. Harry was particularly happy that the conversation had not once mentioned things such as Lord Voldemort and company and when Mrs. Chang insisted that they go home as they had kept getting called back to their tent, (Mrs. Chang's sister, a non-fan of Fire Quidditch due to it's violence, wanted her to come home already and did so by sticking her head in the living room fire of the tent), Mr. and Mrs. Chang left Cho with Harry and the Weasleys and Disapparated with a hearty good-bye.  
  
Feeling slightly relieved about Cho's father, Harry wasn't keen on returning to Privet Drive. They first used Raides to Disapparate to the Burrow and then rode Mr. Weasley's Dodge Viper all the way to Privet Drive, skipping ahead, car to car, to the beginning of lines of cars at red lights along the way. Mrs. Weasley scowled each time Mr. Weasley did this.  
  
With a glum face, Harry knocked on the door and Aunt Petunia opened it. Aunt Marge was still there, as was her nasty dog, Ripper and Harry refrained from looking at them all that day, being more keen on keeping the past two day's events fresh in his head.  
  
The next night during dinner, Aunt Marge wasn't too successful on restraining herself on her favorite subject: Harry's faults. Harry was keeping to himself, eating his dinner without speaking. Cho must have sensed Harry's wish to keep the Fire Quidditch game in his head and did the same. Aunt Marge, of course, wasn't going to let things stay just fine.  
  
"I must get your recipe for beef casserole," Aunt Marge was saying, licking her lips clean after every bite.  
  
"It's nothing, Marge, really," said Aunt Petunia, flattered. "I just use a bit of spice my mother used to use."  
  
Feeling fully overwhelmed by the unpleasantness of Privet Drive once again, Harry kept his eyes on his food, trying not to let Aunt Marge catch his gaze. There was a quick picture in his head of the three hundred foot ice dragon facing Aunt Marge, barring it's mountain-sized teeth at her. Harry didn't think his beef casserole was so fantastic and, according to Cho's glare at Aunt Marge when she had her eyes closed for a bit, neither did she. For a moment, it looked as though Uncle Vernon was going to reprimand Cho but thought better of it.  
  
"Such excellent nosh, Petunia," boomed Aunt Marge thickly, chewing on a mouthful of rice. "I'm surprised you haven't gained any more weight!" Aunt Petunia dangerously flicked her eyes towards her sister-in-law and then back, looking slightly insulted that Aunt Marge had just suggested that she, Petunia, be fatter. "Dudley, here, I'm sure, just can't resist..." And Dudley beamed at her.  
  
Noticing his wife's slight disgust (and Harry wondered when in the world his aunt had picked up this slight hostility towards Aunt Marge), Uncle Vernon pointed his finger at the corner of his lips, looking purposefully at his sister. She picked up a napkin and cleaned her rubber-sized lips of excess food.  
  
"You do normally feed this boy food, don't you, Petunia?" snarled Aunt Marge, gazing over at Harry.  
  
There's a whole year of Quidditch in just one, short month, Harry thought to himself at once. And then he remembered that Ron told him the Triwizard Tournament was taking place.  
  
"Of course," Aunt Petunia drawled in her most reassuring voice. "He's just got his parents -- Dudley has tried several diets you know, none of them worked," she added quickly.  
  
There was a most grievous pause while Aunt Petunia thought desperately for a change of subject. Harry was at least half-grateful that she didn't persue it. Aunt Marge wasn't so easily diverted.  
  
"Speaking of which, Petunia, you never told me, what did the boy's father do for a living?"  
  
It had come to this once before and Harry had come off the worse. Everyone except Aunt Marge flicked their eyes in the direction of Harry, who thought quickly back to his story about his parents.  
  
"Doctor," said Harry quickly. "He worked at a hospital." He had a strange feeling of deja vu.  
  
Aunt Marge narrowed her bloodshot eyes (too much Brandy) suspiciously at Harry. Harry stared determinedly back at her, though he probably shouldn't have because then she barked, "Such a prestigious job, one wonders how they get themselves killed in a car crash."  
  
Harry and Cho had been sitting very close to each other and not without good reason. Cho, who had most likely grown a nose for smelling danger a mile away in her own house, put an arm around Harry and clutched his shoulder, making it look like she was consoling him for the loss -- and truthfully, she was. She knew it had had the effect she wanted as she felt Harry's tense shoulder slowly drop a good inch.  
  
"Didn't make a good good living, did he?" said Aunt Marge, her beady eyes still narrowed in suspicion. "Couldn't have, with the way you turned out..."  
  
"He did," said Harry, now sitting a little taller. "I inherited a small fortune." This wasn't going so bad, Harry thought. Now that he had something to fight with, it was keeping the other dog in the house at bay.  
  
"A small fortune? How much?" She looked strangely interested.  
  
"Er," Harry said, stumped. He didn't exactly know how much money he had if you converted his small fortune of golden Galleons, silver Sickles and bronze Knuts locked away in his vault at Gringott's, the wizard bank, to Muggle money.  
  
"A couple hundred thousand pounds, wasn't that you told me, Harry?" Cho said as Uncle Vernon's eyes lit up like spotlights at the sound of so much money.  
  
"Oh, yeah, right," Harry said. Evidently, Cho had some experience in the matter.  
  
Maybe that wasn't such a good thing to say, as the Dursleys never knew of Harry's small fortune at Gringott's. But, then again, there was no way in the world to convert wizard money to Muggle money without attracting some attention and there was further no way in the world that Harry was going to let them have any of it. Just when he realized this, however, Aunt Marge exploded, saying exactly what Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were thinking.  
  
"YOU'VE HAD A SMALL FORTUNE AND NOT LET YOUR HARDWORKING AUNT AND UNCLE SEE ANY OF IT?" she roared.  
  
Dudley's fork fell with a clatter to the floor. Apparently his dislike for Harry didn't extend to a small fortune, either. To make matters worse, Harry's finger was trembling and Cho sensed more danger. Now that Harry was becoming fairly adept at magic without a wand...  
  
"YOUR RELATIVES SPEND THEIR HARD-EARNED MONEY ON YOU WHILE YOU HAVE HALF A MILLION POUNDS STASHED AWAY IN A BANK!" she continued roaring. Harry thought she would make a good impression of a dragon if asked to do so.  
  
"Spend their money on me?" Harry said, narrowing his own eyes and looking at his aunt dangerously through the top of his round glasses. "They give me Dudley's old clothing which fits me like elephant skin and the only reason she feeds me is because if she doesn't I'll die and then the police will arrest her," he said fiercely.  
  
And with one nasty look at his two aunts and uncle, he stood up to go upstairs to which Aunt Marge barked, "You sit down, you nasty, insolent little prat!"  
  
"You're such a pleasant woman," Cho said scathingly.  
  
"And you!" Aunt Marge said, now rounding on Cho. "You're another one!"  
  
Cho looked absolutely horrified this woman would dare talk to her with only barely knowing her.  
  
"Come on, Harry," Cho said and she wheeled around, grabbed his hand and walked up the stairs with him. "I'm not going to last here," she then said when they had reached his bedroom. "Haven't you got a place to go besides this house?"  
  
"No," Harry said, sitting heavily upon Cho's bed. "And how are we going to get anywhere. Can you drive a car?"  
  
"Yes. Passed my driver's test just before the end of last term."  
  
For a split second, he wanted to stand up, but then he remembered something. "There's no way they'll let us take one of theirs, though."  
  
It was Cho's turn to sit heavily (next to Harry). Both of them let out a huge breath of disappointment at the same time and for some reason they were staring at Hedwig, whose amber eyes kept darting between the both of them uncertainly. Hedwig?  
  
"Hedwig!" Harry hissed, getting up very quickly walking over to Hedwig on Harry's desk. "What are you doing back here?" Cho got up, too. "You're supposed to be at Ron's!"  
  
"There's a letter tied to her leg," Cho said, pointing. She took it off and read it aloud.  
  
Harry and Cho,  
Mrs. Weasley, bless her, suggested something that I'm sure you're both going to agree to. I guess she felt that you're going to want to get out of that house. Cho passed her driving test recently so if you two want, you can borrow one of our cars. I barely ever use mine, and I think you're going to need it more than I will. Feel free.  
  
PS: The Weasley's used Hedwig because their owl, Errol, was not feeling up to it, Ron's owl was busy, my owl was busy and we felt this was rather urgent. Just send her back to the Weasleys and they'll notify me.  
Happy summer,  
Blossom  
  
Harry's face had slowly turned from gloom to bloom in the minute it took Cho to finish reading and so had her's. Hedwig, on the other hand, was looking ready for a long sleep.  
  
"We have to let her stay for a day," Cho said. Harry nodded, as did Hedwig.  
  
Suddenly, the three of them looked at each other and then at the door. Hedwig was hungry and there was no way Harry or Cho was going to go back downstairs until tomorrow morning.  
  
"Raides," Harry said, as he poked his head under his bed and grabed the Staff of Cybele, making it spring to life.  
  
Raides took one look at Hedwig when Harry had sat back down and said, "Need some food for the owl and don't want to go back downstairs?" Harry and Cho nodded at her. "The words, well, word, is 'Ambrosia.' Conjures up whatever you're thinking of. I like beef casserole, myself."  
  
Neither Harry nor Cho bothered to voice a comment but both of them silently wanted to just hit Raides.  
  
Hoping this would count as necessary magic, Harry said quietly, "Ambrosia," thinking of a meal consisting of bacon strips and Hedwig's favorite, a rat (except he pictured the rat cut and served up like chicken). It was immeasurably better than the dead rats that Hedwig sometimes turned up with. Harry didn't mind it though, he was used to gross things while he had taken residence in the cupboard under the stairs for ten years. He had to. There were lots of spiders in there.  
  
There was a pop that they all hoped no one but them could hear and a bacon strip and a few slices of neatly prepared rat meat appeared in front of Hedwig. Her amber eyes widened in delight and she began eating, occasionally fluttering over to her cage and taking a sip of the water. Eventually she just picked it all up and dropped it at the bottom of the cage. Cho promptly ordered Harry to clean the greasy spot the bacon had left.  
  
Sitting down and watching Hedwig eat, Harry had to think. He wanted to keep it to himself but the words came tumbling out his mouth before he knew what he was doing.  
  
"Why are you staying here? They treat you just as bad as they treat me."  
  
This had caught Cho by surprise. She turned quickly from Hedwig to Harry but didn't reply, she just sat there. He suddenly felt extremely stupid. What was she thinking, Harry thought desperately, and what words were forming in her head? What did that mean, her mouth being half open?  
  
He knew. He should have kept that to himself. He was assured this as Cho's head slowly turned back to Hedwig and her mouth closed.  
  
"Sorry," he said quietly, looking at the floor in front of him.  
  
Harry sat up, crossed the room, took out a pen and crossed off another day on his calendar until September the first. Harry couldn't see but Cho was watching him with both of her eyes, watched him stand up, watched him open the desk drawer and watched him take out a pen. Harry stopped writing and stared at the pen for a second. A sudden feeling in spite of the mood of what just happened downstairs crossed over Cho.  
  
"I'm staying because I -- I -- I love you."  
  
Harry dropped the pen.  
  
"You what?" he croaked without turning around, or, in fact, moving at all (his hand was still shaped as if clutching a pen). Those three simple words had the same effect a torch would if brushed up against his insides: it burned them all away.  
  
"You heard."  
  
Harry heard, but he wished he didn't because it a strange effect on him he couldn't explain. He didn't particularly feel like moving, those three words from Cho had frozen his entire body. They made his mind go completely numb and he didn't know what to do, say or think so he settled for just standing there and not moving a muscle. He did hear Cho calling his name but it sounded far away and distant, like he was standing in a humongous, echoing cave. The picture of the calendar in front of him became blurred and indistinguishable.  
  
She called his name again, this time tugging on his arm as well. Harry didn't budge, and so Cho gave up.  
  
She sat down and the sound of her sigh somehow unlocked Harry's body -- he was at least able to drop his arm. Raides, who both of them forgot was still full of life, kept her silence, hoping this would resolve itself. Harry sat down in the chair at his desk. His body tensed up again and he couldn't answer himself when he asked why this was happening, why his head had frozen up and why his heart just felt like mush.  
  
Maybe it was because no one, in seventeen years, had said those three words to him? Well, he guessed his parents might have said it but he only knew one moment of his life with them and recalling it didn't bring any comfort.  
  
Cho stood up and left the room. It wasn't that Harry didn't want her to stay, it was just that he couldn't make any sound exit his mouth and his legs seemed to be disconnected from the rest of his body. Cho didn't come back at all that night and when Harry's eyes drooped, he had the dream again.  
  
The following morning, Harry woke up all on his own and it was fairly late in the day: around two in the afternoon. He picked up his glasses on the table next to him to have a look around. Cho was gone and someone had left a plate on his desk with a bagel, buttered the way he liked it (not too little, but not enough to make it seep out the sides). He noticed that Hedwig was gone again and that his head was sore, possibly from sleeping so long, or was that last night's events still spinning around in it?  
  
He rubbed his stomach and pushed in on it just to make sure that his insides had indeed come back. Assured he wasn't going to eat the bagel and have to go charging to the bathroom, spitting it up, he sat down at his desk, picked it up, took a bite, chewed slightly, swallowed it mostly whole, dropped it onto the plate, stood up and then exited the room. Harry absolutely had to find and talk to Cho -- now.  
  
Downstairs in the kitchen, Aunt Petunia had Aunt Marge in an engrossing conversation he was sure was absolutely wonderful but he couldn't give two gnomes in a garden about (the home shopping channel's latest endeavours in designer bathrooms). Not daring to interrupt them, Harry wondered where she could be when at that moment he saw her hair out of the corner of his eye, watching television on the couch in the living room. Shaking, a strong urge to run upstairs and get the Order of Merlin necklace bearing down on him (and ignoring the silent sniggers from his porky cousin Dudley in the kitchen), he screwed up what remained of his courage and walked over.  
  
He opened his mouth to speak but before he got a word out, Cho held up a pair of car keys and dangled them in front of him. It would appear she didn't want to talk about it any more than Harry did and he was okay with that.  
  
"Go get changed," Cho said. "My Aunt Blossom let me borrow her white Ford Taurus. I already squeezed directions out of your aunt for the Surrey Place Mall."  
  
"I've never been to a mall before..." Harry thought out loud.  
  
Cho was clearly upset by this statement and while Aunt Petunia was getting up to get a cup of tea, she gave the back of her's and Aunt Marge's head a rude look.  
  
"You two better be careful," Aunt Petunia said while waving a threatening, bony finger (which, by the shape of it, wasn't really all that threatening) at Harry. Aunt Marge waved one of her own tree-thick fingers as well.  
  
"Whatever," Harry said dismissively as Cho told him to go finish the bagel she made for him and get changed.  
  
Harry wanted to take Raides and pass her off as a pet but he was forcefully reminded of what people would say when looking at an animal of her stature when Harry and Cho told her where they were going. And, following Harry and Cho's lead, Raides didn't mention last night either.  
  
They didn't really think they'd need them, but each of them hid their wands inside their pants and took a light jacket to cover it. Harry didn't go anywhere in the wizarding world without it and the Muggle world was just as strange to him, having not stepped foot outside Privet Drive in six years except to go to Hogwarts. It was a little windy, after all... But before he left the room, Harry's eyes grazed over the Order of Merlin necklace and, in one quick motion, snatched it from his desk and put it on. He certainly couldn't wear the Phoenix Bracelet. What would a Muggle say if they saw a bracelet engulfed in flames?  
  
Harry liked driving with Cho a lot more than with his aunt and uncle: he could talk and not get snapped at.  
  
"I remember having a dream a while ago about a flying motorcycle," Harry was saying as Cho pointed out the one that her uncle wanted. "That was the night --"But he quickly stopped talking. It was painful to finish that sentence.  
  
"Flying motorcycle?" Cho said, turning to look at Harry while stopped at a red light.  
  
Harry suddenly grinned and added, "I mentioned it once in the car with my aunt and uncle. My uncle was driving and he nearly hit the car in front of us. Then he turned around and screamed at me that motorcycles don't fly."  
  
"Do you know who's it was?"  
  
"Sirius lent it to Hagrid to -- er -- before --" It was painful to finish that sentence, too.  
  
Cho abruptly changed the subject to all of the stores she wanted to take a look at. Her aunt performed an Exchanging Charm on her wizard money to turn it into Muggle money; she had about five hundred pounds to spend on anything but items of note were jewelery and clothes. Harry had no objections in paying her back for any money he wanted to spend.  
  
"First thing we do is get you some new clothes," she said, parking the car, getting out with Harry, locking it and looking up at the huge mall in front of her, a sparkle of longing in her eye like this was a heaven. All Harry noticed was that when the wind blew, his already untidy hair became even more untidy.  
  
"Flatten it, will you?" Cho snapped.  
  
Harry glared at her. She ran her fingers through his hair like a comb and the best she managed was, well, nothing.  
  
Upon entering Surrey Place Mall, the first store Cho dragged him into by the sleeve was Bloomingdale's.  
  
Cho's eyes lit up like someone had just started a candle in them and said, "I would just die to go visit the one in New York. It takes up an entire block! And New York's blocks are huge! Wouldn't you?"  
  
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I would."  
  
Apart from the large selection of designer fashion, Harry wasn't all that interested in clothing. Cho bought a scarf that was longer than he was tall, doning a small picture at one end of a thirty-year-old Muggle he never heard of named Daniel Radcliffe. She was just giddy about it.  
  
Harry thought some of the people they passed while walking in the high-ceiled, beautifully decorated mall, coupled with lavish water fountains and glass elevators, to be a rather unpleasant lot. He wasn't pleased to see that even some Muggles, who had never heard of Lord Voldemort, could be seen flicking their eyes up at his forehead. Cho helped him to cover it with his bangs...  
  
"Did you hear about that guy that's terrorizing all of England?" Harry heard some young girl say when they were eating lunch at a place Harry picked out that he thought was sort of interestesting: McDonalds.  
  
"Yeah," said some young boy, though slightly older than the girl, excitedly. "They say he killed his dad because his mom married some foreigner and when she died giving birth to him, his dad disowned him because he hated the way he turned out!"  
  
Harry knew that to be mostly correct but he knew that, Lord Voldemort, formerly known as Tom Marvolo Riddle, had a dad who hated having a wizard as a son and a witch for a wife -- it wasn't just that his wife was a foreigner. Tom exacted his revenge against his hateful father by killing him and changed his name to Lord Voldemort after he left Hogwarts.  
  
Cho tried to say something but Harry silenced her with a finger to his lips. He wanted to hear what the Muggles knew. Cho was partially interested, too, but she was more concerned about Harry getting upset by hearing it.  
  
"Dad told me that some nutter about fifteen years ago was doing the same thing. They say he died. You think it's the same person?"  
  
"Don't be stupid," the boy said while laughing airily. "People don't come back from the dead."  
  
"He didn't die," Harry muttered under his breath. "He's immortal."  
  
"My mom told me some legend about it, it's the most coolest thing!" Harry heard the girl say. "It said that some one year old baby killed him and the most the baby got was a scar on his forehead! Shaped like a lightning bolt! And the baby was a wizard! Killed him with one spell!"  
  
Cho looked to make sure the scar was still well-hidden.  
  
"Don't be stupid," the boy repeated. "If that's true then I'll eat my shorts. And no one gets lightning-shaped scars on their foreheads, you'd have to make that yourself and I'm willing to bet it would hurt a lot."  
  
"Want to know what the Cruciatus Curse feels like?" Harry mumbled irritably which made Cho give him a very angry look.  
  
"Sarah said she saw someone with a scar walking around in the mall today!" the girl said. "She did! Just before we left! On the phone!"  
  
Harry looked around for them to know where not to turn his face to.  
  
"He's got black, messy hair and round glasses!" the young girl went on feverishly.  
  
Harry couldn't find them.  
  
"Come on, Lucy," said the boy, now sounding slightly annoyed. "Do you really expect me to believe a normal, human, one year old baby can kill a fully grown person? Listen to yourself!" He tutted loudly, sounding a lot like Hermione, Harry thought. "It's an urban legend."  
  
"What's an urban legend?" said the young girl, sounding excited to find out what an urban legend is. "What is it! What is it! What is it!" she chanted.  
  
"Shh!" he said forcefully. "Mom's going to have my head if we get kicked out again!"  
  
"Hey! There's a boy with black, messy hair and glasses!" the girl shouted very loudly. Harry could only guess that, wherever she was, she was pointing at him.  
  
"We better go," Cho said quietly. Harry nodded before she even finished speaking.  
  
They both threw out their empty hamburger wrappers and cups of coke but kept their box of fries and munched on them as they stood up and tried to walk out of the crowded eatery inconspicuously.  
  
"It's rude to point, Lucy," the boy said, to Harry and Cho's great relief.  
  
Other people had evidently heard this seemingly tall tale and more than one head turned, trying it's best to look nonchalant, to look at Harry as he passed.  
  
Harry kept his eyes on this one toddler who jumped up and town, shouting "You! You! You!" as he bent his head closer to Cho's ear and whispered desperately, "Can we go home now?" The fries were very good but they were so greasy they would only make it harder to shove people out of the way if he had to run for it.  
  
"No!" Cho hissed fiercely. "I haven't even shown you Hot Topic!"  
  
"Hot -- what?"  
  
Cho dragged Harry by the arm to a store full of clothing that Cho said she would never buy but sometimes liked to look at. Artfully ripped, blood-red jeans, shirts by Muggle music bands with very strang names... One by the name of Creed looked quite odd but Harry resisted the urge he had to buy it.  
  
"Can I help you?" the store clerk asked. She had violently yellow hair and was wearing a black shirt with red claw marks on it.  
  
"Just looking," Cho told her in a distance voice, distracted by the pair of pants she was holding up that had what looked like -- and Harry hoped it was fake -- human hair at the bottom.  
  
Harry spotted the very same cloak that Jeff Uder had worn except it wasn't white, it was dark blue and it wasn't made of dragon hide, it was made of leather.  
  
"They shouldn't bother trying to imitate wizard clothes," Harry said to Cho, chuckling softly.  
  
They left Hot Topic, a black leather belt with a metal clip (it had a picture of a golden lion with a scarlet tail on it) sitting safely at the bottom of Cho's bag from Bloomingdale's. It was the last one on the rack.  
  
Harry needed a break -- his feet were starting to hurt from non-stop walking for the past two hours. Cho suggested video games would be a good way to relieve their feet.  
  
Harry's first choice (and Cho's last) was a game with six buttons and a joystick. Three punches, three kicks and a lot of motions with the stick that Harry knew he would never memorize. His first victory (against the computer) pushed his confidence up a little, making the second round a whole lot easier. And then someone a little older than him, wearing a leather jacket and a shaved head, tried his luck against Harry.  
  
"No, no, you're doing it all wrong," he said as Harry accidently pulled a thirty-nine hit combination move on him.  
  
He showed Harry how it was really done and managed ninety-nine hits. Cho cheered Harry on and in the end, it was Harry who won purely due to luck. The person with the shaved head gave Harry a forceful push on the shoulder, colored the air with some rather rude words, clearly upset by his loss, and then stalked away.  
  
Harry gave up after the third round and decided it was best to move on. After trying his hand at a game where you sat on a fake motorcyle and raced through several tracks (and losing horribly), Cho then proceeded to drag him into a store that actually carried men's clothing.  
  
"Ooh look at these nice tops -- oh fifty percent off!" Cho said gleefully, coming up to a table full of t-shirts of a variety of colors, including Harry's least favorite: pink.  
  
"You can buy that but that doesn't mean I'm going to wear it," he told her.  
  
He pulled Cho away from the table of shirts and walked towards a bunch of shirts that caught his eye on a rack on the far back wall.  
  
"Those are nice," Cho said, feeling the material and pulling one off the rack.  
  
She held it against him, seeing if it even remotely fit him.  
  
"You're going to make me try them on, aren't you," said Harry, reading Cho's mind.  
  
"Yes," she said, pointing a stern finger in the direction of the changing rooms. "Do you want to try them on two weeks from now and find out they don't fit and then we have to come back?"  
  
They walked out with one new pair of pants and two shirts for Harry.  
  
On the way towards a bunch other stores, he couldn't help but ask why she wore Muggle clothing most of the time and not wizard robes. Her reply was that she had half a closet full of robes and the other half with Muggle clothing. The only robes he had were the ones that he wore at Hogwarts. Harry just couldn't picture himself dressed as something like Albus Dumbledore for quite some time, that is if he even, well... nevermind. He just hoped that Voldemort would never get his wish.  
  
By the time Cho deemed their visit to the mall finished, she had made Harry visit what seemed like every store and every muscle in his foot -- all nineteen of them, according to the sign in Foot Locker, a shoe store (and all twenty-six bones) -- was screaming for help. 


	10. Aunt Marge Finds Out

Chapter 10: AUNT MARGE FINDS OUT  
  
"We did good today!" Cho said happily as they left the front entrance and headed towards the car.  
  
It was dusk and the remnants of the sun was painting the horizon pink, the ground, it's usual gray. Harry had no memory of spending an entire day with someone -- especially someone he liked, a lot -- on a breezy summer's day and he felt the day was complete when, amongst all the bags they were carrying in each hand, Cho's hand still managed to grab onto his. He wasn't really paying attention to the words coming out of her mouth (they had something to do with what her sister would say to all the money she spent). As a strong gust of wind blew that messed up Harry's hair entirely, he gazed around the parking lot. It was very empty but that didn't really surprise him -- it was fairly late and there was a mass murderer running loose.  
  
"You never told me you had a sister!" Harry said a little more loudly than he intended.  
  
Cho turned to him and grinned.  
  
"D'you like that necklace I bought?" she said.  
  
"Looks a lot like this one," said Harry, switching the bag in his right hand to his left and holding up the Order of Merlin plaque.  
  
Right away, he noticed that holding it had no effect on him (which he thought was good but would still like to know what about that feeling inside him made it not do anything). Cho pulled the golden necklace out of one of her bags.  
  
"Yeah," she said thickly and barely moving her lips because she was concentrating too hard on comparing the two. "It does, doesn't it?" she added and then after one more look between the two, stuffed it back into it's box and into the bag.  
  
Harry put the other bag back in his right hand as they continued down the parking lot towards the white Ford Taurus. He longed for a driver's license of his own but doubted whether the Dursleys would ever trust him with a go-kart let alone a fully blown motor vehicle. Even if he couldn't get one, he still had his Dragonback and that could go farther and faster than any car ever built.  
  
As the Ford Taurus came closer and closer into view, Harry saw the person with the leather jacket coming at them from the other direction. Harry ignored him completely.  
  
Cho popped the trunk open and they stuffed all the bags they could into the trunk and would have to stick the last one in the back seat ("I needed new clothes anyway," Cho explained, "my sister likes to borrow mine and she gets them all dirty. I don't know how she does it").  
  
As Cho closed the trunk and unlocked Harry's door, a barely familiar voice behind him spoke.  
  
"Hey, kid!" it said in a tone that brought back many unpleasant memories of Draco Malfoy.  
  
Harry wheeled around and saw that person with the shaved head and leather jacket standing behind him with a smirk on his face. He really didn't want to find out why only one of person's hands was rolled into a fist but it was instinct that told him to run sideways and just as he did that, Harry heard a bang of skin on metal -- he clearly wanted to get better revenge for losing.  
  
"You've got that scar!" he shouted, sneering.  
  
He grabbed Harry by the arm and parted his bangs to get a better look at the scar on his forehead.  
  
"Oh, it does exist," he said quietly. "So did you really kill that guy when you were just a teeny, tiny baby or did you get word of that legend of the scar and carve that thing yourself?" he added, smiling wickedly.  
  
Harry didn't know which way to reply. He had a sick feeling this wasn't going to end nicely no matter what he said. Figuring no one would believe him anyway --  
  
"Yeah, I killed him," said Harry and, feeling he might as well do the thing properly, he added, "Shoulda seen the look on his face. He pleaded with me."  
  
But that wasn't exactly the right thing to say because the next moment, the person pulled out -- to Harry's horror -- a switchblade. Harry pulled his hand away and the person just laughed. Cho stood there, transfixed. She didn't know what to do either. If either of them used magic, that would definitely count as a violation of the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry, not to mention neither of them knew how to perform a Memory Charm, a convenient spell to make someone -- Muggle, witch or wizard -- forget something.  
  
He tutted, saying, "Tsk, tsk. You stupid prat, you know what I do to posers who want to get themself a bit of fame? I've seen people with fake lightning scars, nowhere as realistic as yours" -- and Harry felt like he had just been stabbed -- "but I showed them all what it's like to feel as stupid as they really are," he went on, drawling, with that same wicked grin.  
  
Throwing away all pretense, the first move Harry made was to take the Order of Merlin necklace off and hold it in his hand. Immediately, it had the effect he wanted of giving him whatever wits he needed to defend himself. The other person, on the other hand, swung and missed with his knife at Harry's stomach. Harry thought he got away with it but the next second he had the wind knocked out of him as he felt a fist hit his stomach very hard, knocking him backwards and then the other fist connect with the side of his face. Both hits knocked him onto his back.  
  
"That necklace is your only weapon?" said their attacker, laughing harder than ever.  
  
"You don't want to see my weapon," Harry muttered through gritted teeth, thinking of the wand tucked safely away under his jacket.  
  
"What's that you said? Don't want me to hurt you? What about her, this your girlfriend?" the person said, backing into a very scared Cho.  
  
He pulled her arms around her back and stuck the knife up to her throat. Cho's pulse rose so high that the blood vessels in her neck were throbbing. She wasn't looking anywhere except at Harry.  
  
"LET -- HER -- GO!" Harry roared, getting to his feet and clenching his own fists. He had to fight down the terrible urge to grab his wand and use magic.  
  
"Aww," the person sneered. "Going to miss her that much if I, well..."  
  
Harry saw blood trickling down Cho's throat and her eyes start to water and wince with pain. He felt a hot surge of anger and was surprised that she wasn't crying -- or perhaps she was counting on him to do something? Harry assessed his options. If he let go of the necklace, he feared that his legs would take him in the other direction, leaving Cho to just... If he used his wand, he was surely going to be in deep trouble with the Ministry of Magic and it wouldn't be his first offense. He wished that he thought of the idea of taking Raides under the Invisibility Cloak... All he really wanted was for the person to just leave them be, let them go and let them both go home.  
  
Standing there, watching blood trickle down Cho's throat and begin to color her otherwise pretty striped shirt, he wished the attacker would leave them alone harder and harder. In fact, he was wishing so hard that it caused his vision to become blurry.  
  
Harry's body gave a sharp jolt all over and he went tingly from head to toe. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he felt very weak. All he could think of was the mad laughter that echoed horribly in his ears. And then, just as suddenly as it started, his body fell under it's own weight and just before his head hit the ground with a thud, he heard Cho scream.  
  
He did wake, but nothing was quite as it should have been. He was holding a knife up to Cho's neck. Having absolutely no idea what he was doing, he dropped her and looked up: his body was on the ground in front of him. Harry looked around at Cho, who, for a reason he didn't know, was scared to death of him. He didn't say anything, he just walked off and as his legs began to move, his body went tingly all over. He saw Cho run past him as his body went weak once again and felt himself collapse.  
  
When he woke again, the person was gone, Cho was clutching her bleeding throat and kneeling over Harry. Bits of her own blood had dropped onto him. He stood up very suddenly.  
  
"What happened," was all he could think to say, his voice shaking.  
  
"I -- I don't know," Cho said, looking at Harry nervously. "You just sort of fell and then a few seconds later, that guy just walked away. When he was gone, you woke up."  
  
Harry was visited with a ridiculous idea: he could possess someone else's body. He didn't voice this to Cho, he'd had enough experience with strange abilities no one else seemed to have. It was bad enough he was a Parselmouth, a wizard who could talk to snakes. Salazar Slytherin himself was famous for this. This bit got Harry into quite a bit of trouble in his second year at Hogwarts when he was blamed for setting a snake that appeared to be too large to even exist on the students. Fifty years before, the exact same thing had happened and it ended up being the death of one student. Back then, it was Tom Riddle. Fifty years later, it was a diary from Tom which had bewitched Ginny Weasley (Ron's little sister who had something of a crush on Harry) to do it. Harry had come face to face with the snake and killed it.  
  
"You're bleeding," Cho said which made Harry remind her that, "You are, too."  
  
Both of them stood up, Cho clutching her bleeding throat and Harry pressing his hand against a cut on the side of his head that he probably got from falling on the ground. With their free arms, they grabbed each other around the back and walked limpily towards the car. The first thing that Harry on his mind was tending to her wound.  
  
As Cho went to open the trunk to get something to stop the bleeding, it wasn't the smile on her face that made him worry as she said, "Look, forget about it. He's gone, we're safe, it's over." It was the blood that dribbled down her mouth, the heavy, strangling cough she gave followed by more blood and her falling limp in his arms that made his mouth open in pure terror.  
  
He felt the panic in him rising as the reality of the situation set in. He couldn't believe it. All he had was his wand, a stupid watch and the Order of Merlin necklace. A fat lot of help those three things were to him right now... For a terrifying few seconds, he looked into the eyes of the girl he, well... not having any idea what to do. He didn't know any spells to heal wounds and he certainly wasn't going to attempt to drive that car.  
  
Panic reaching extreme heights, he took a fistful of his own shirt and wiped away as much blood from Cho's neck as possible. He wasn't happy at all to see more coming.  
  
Thinking quickly, Harry took the keys from Cho's fingers and opened the trunk. He took out the scarf she had bought and wrapped it around her neck in an attempt to stop the bleeding. When he was sure it was wrapped snug, he put her in the car, locked the doors, stuffed the keys in his pocket and held his wand out.  
  
There was one last thought, probably a very stupid one, that was the only thing he could think to do: he would have to try his hand at Disapparating all the way back to Privet Drive, regardless of Aunt Marge, to get at the Phoenix Bracelet.   
  
"Deliquesco!" he shouted, hoping no Muggles were watching and hoping for dear life not to get splinched, not now, not when it was so urgent...  
  
It worked. And there was no way he could ever care less when his bedroom door swung wide open with Aunt Marge and Aunt Petunia staring at him, his wand in his hand.  
  
"WHAT -- HAVE -- I -- TOLD -- YOU!" thundered Aunt Petunia.  
  
Her face was positively shaking with anger and Harry could not care less what was going on in Aunt Marge's mind.  
  
"Don't ask," he said calmly.   
  
Without saying another word to either of them, he pulled the Staff of Cybele out from under his bed, put on the Phoenix Bracelet and shouted, "Deliquesco!" once more, this time taking him right back to Cho's side.  
  
Raides sprang to life and with one look at Cho, transformed into the great golden and scarlet lion.  
  
"You can tell me the details later," said Raides to Harry's great relief.  
  
He held onto Cho's hand and Disapparated the three of them back to his bedroom in Privet Drive. Aunt Marge and Aunt Petunia were now accompanied by Uncle Vernon.  
  
Raides, realizing what Harry must've had to have done to get her, said to Harry's relatives, "Would you mind? The girl's hurt badly, here."  
  
Harry set Cho down on her bed and removed the scarf. The inside of it had absorbed quite a bit of blood.  
  
His relatives, however, didn't seem to have any feeling in their legs and watched, horrified, as Harry bent over Cho and proceeded to heal the wound on her neck with the bracelet. Raides transformed back into the Staff of Cybele. Harry heard the words "Ennervate" in his head, and, taking the hint, grabbed it, stood up and pointed the crystal at Cho. He knew that this was the spell to wake someone up who had been unconscious. It glowed white for a few seconds and then shot a pearly-white ball at her that was accompanied by a gasp of Aunt Petunia. Aunt Marge's mouth was open in a sort of silent bark, typical of the sound she usually made when she was yelling at Harry.  
  
Cho's eyes opened. She smiled for a fraction of a second before catching sight of the staff in Harry's hand, the bracelet on his wrist and Aunt Marge standing behind him, terrified.  
  
"I don't care," he said flatly, noticing the look on Cho's face.  
  
He wheeled around to face Aunt Marge and dropped the staff. Raides transformed into the lion on her way down. Aunt Marge backed up against the wall in the hallway at the very sight.  
  
"Petunia?" she said faintly.  
  
Aunt Petunia, to Harry's great surprise, had dropped her anger and he watched it curiously change to pure confusion. Uncle Vernon's face had gone from purple to a grotesque maroon. For a brief moment, Harry thought it would be funny to try the Phoenix Bracelet out on him and see if that's just an ability he has, being able to turn his face different colors, or if it was just a defect. Aunt Petunia grabbed her hips with her hands and nervously spun around, clearly not knowing what to do.  
  
"Surprise!" growled Raides haughtily. "He doesn't go to St. Brutus'!"  
  
Harry had a hard time forcing down a laugh even in a situation as serious as this. He was glad when, a moment later, Uncle Vernon grabbed Aunt Marge by the wrist and ran down the stairs with her. Aunt Petunia looked somewhat indifferent, mumbled something indistinct about Dudley and then she, too, ran down the stairs.  
  
Harry and Cho gave one great, big simultaneous sigh and then turned to look at one another. The next thing that crossed Harry's mind was none too pleasant.  
  
"So when d'you think" -- and Harry heard an indistinct popping noise behind him but didn't turn around to see what it was -- "the Ministry of Magic is going to come busting down the door and send me to Azkaban."  
  
"We're not sending you to Azkaban for that," said a friendly, familiar voice right behind Harry causing him to jump. He turned around to face Mr. Weasley in robes of gray and white. Mr. Weasley took one look at the blood stain on Harry's shirt and shrieked.  
  
"It's not mine," Harry explained. "I'm fine. It was her's but she's okay now."  
  
"Oh, yes, well, very good. In that case, then, while I agree with Raides here that there was nothing to be done once Cho had been hurt, you shouldn't have, well... everything's okay now except for Miss Dursley, then?"  
  
Harry knew that he had been teetering on the verge of saying "left the house." Just then, he had a quick thought.  
  
"Can you leave her just the way she is?" he asked hopefully. "Maybe if she -- er -- knows and it wasn't such a bad experience as -- that she won't -- ?"  
  
He could see the gears going in Mr. Weasley's head as he seemed to be considering the idea.  
  
"You know, I was notified right away and had to wheedle my boss into sending me and not someone else to take care of this. I don't know, Harry," said Mr. Weasley uncertainly, looking sideways at Harry.  
  
Before Mr. Weasley could say another word, Cho said quickly, "You know, Dudley got an acceptance letter and ever since, Harry and I have been trying to convince his aunt and uncle to send Dudley to Hogwarts. Maybe if they... ?"  
  
Cho didn't have to finish the sentence, it's what he, himself, had been thinking for a long time now. Maybe if they knew enough, had seen enough and if it made their thick, cold hearts care enough, they wouldn't hate him as much.  
  
Feeling thoroughly miserable, Harry walked over to his desk, picked up the very same pen he had been holding when Cho said three little words and crossed off another day on his calendar until his return to Hogwarts. "A little less than a month," he mumbled to himself. What made him feel even more miserable was that it was his last year at Hogwarts and he had no idea what he would be doing after he graduated aside from living with the Dursleys for the rest of his life.  
  
He felt a pair of arms grab him from around the back and Mr. Weasley's reasoning fell soft under the weight of what was in front of him.  
  
"All right," he said finally, "I'll not put a Memory Charm on her but I will be speaking to her. Leave me to handle the car, you two should get some dinner."  
  
Harry was pleased to see his face contour itself into a smile. Mr. Weasley didn't think it a good idea for Harry and Cho to be having dinner with the Dursleys that night. He saw fit to bring up dinner to Harry's room for the two of them and after whatever talk he had with Aunt Marge, Disapparated back to the Burrow. Neither Harry nor Cho weren't keen on discussing the night's events, especially Harry who still had the ridiculous idea that he could possess people. Maybe he would share this with Sirius, Ron or Hermione but certainly not anybody else.  
  
Harry gave the keys to Mr. Weasley and as soon as he was gone, Cho ordered Harry to change. Red was never her favorite color...  
  
"Turn around or close your eyes," Harry told Raides and Cho as he took another shirt out of his closet.  
  
After making sure that Cho's hands were firmly planted over her eyes and Raides' head was under the bed, he took off the shirt he was wearing. As he put the new one on, he didn't see as Cho opened two fingers to look at him, giggling (he just thought she was giggling because she knew what he was doing), and by the time he made sure she was still covering her eyes and said "okay," Cho had her fingers back in place. He wouldn't have done that with her even in the room just a short month ago. Harry had been increasingly comfortable around her but that didn't stop him from turning cherry-red.  
  
They spent the entire night talking with Raides about the upcoming Triwizard Tournament taking place at Hogwarts and came to a silent agreement that enough had been said about tonight.  
  
Harry still wasn't keen on becoming a Hogwarts champion like he had been forced to be the last time the Triwizard Tournament had taken place. Cho conveniently reminded him that the inter-house Quidditch Cup wouldn't take place. He always needed something to take his mind off schoolwork, among other things. And so after a few hours of talking, Harry was a little closer to deciding on taking part in it than he was just a few hours ago as he fell asleep that night, thinking about it. He almost felt like hearing those three little words again but knew Cho wouldn't be saying them again for a long, long time. There wasn't any way he could bring himself to say them, either. 


	11. The Truth Comes Out

Chapter 11: THE TRUTH COMES OUT  
  
"You're awake too?" called Harry through the morning sunlight.  
  
It was the next morning and as Harry awoke in bed, he saw Cho's head moving.  
  
"Yes," she replied groggily. "Woke up a minute ago."  
  
"Oh. I woke up just a second ago."  
  
Harry sat upright, as did Cho, picked up his glasses and put them on. Their bags from the mall from yesterday were sitting in a corner of the room and someone had washed the scarf with the picture of that strange Muggle named Daniel Radcliffe. Hedwig was back, hooting happily in her cage and pecking the door with her beak, obviously wanting to come out. Someone must had retrieved her and put her in her cage so she wouldn't disturb Harry or Cho. There were two letters sitting next to her cage and the last thing that Harry saw was that Raides was curled up like an extravagant rug, her head on her paws.  
  
Careful not to trod on her, Harry opened Hedwig's cage, who immediately gave off a series of loud, happy hoots, enough to wake the dead and, consequently, Raides ("Damn bird").  
  
"I guess now that your Aunt Marge knows, there's no need to hide anything from her," said Cho, grinning.  
  
"Yep," Harry agreed as Hedwig fluttered onto his shoulder, nipping his neck affectionately. "Think one of these letters is from the Ministry?"  
  
"Probably one from my parents, too," Cho said, grinning more.  
  
"Hey, don't joke about that," said Harry, turning to Cho and giving her a stern look. "That could have turned out -- a lot worse."  
  
Cho nodded gravely in agreement.  
  
"Oh, no," said Harry, running a nervous hand through his hair. "This one's from Dumbledore. It's not good news. He has this amazing ability to make me feel either a lot better or a lot worse. I'll read it to you."  
  
Dear Harry,  
I got wind of your travels just this morning. While I am happy to hear that you're both safe, I must insist that you stay within the confines of the Dursley home until September the first.  
  
See you then.  
Sincerely,  
Albus Dumbledore  
Headmaster, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry  
  
"That's it?" said Harry blankly. "That's all he has to say? It's the Dursley Dream. They want to keep me miserable. I'm going to be stuck here until they die and then Voldemort's going to get me."  
  
"Is that really their dream?" said Cho suggestively.  
  
"What do you mean?" Harry snapped.  
  
"What is the Dursley Dream?" said Cho, sound just as suggestive.  
  
Harry didn't understand what she meant at all. He put the letter down and then let out his frustrations by jamming his fist through the wall leading into Dudley's room. He acted like he did nothing more than break a pen in half.  
  
"Harry -- you broke the wall," said Cho flatly.  
  
"And?"  
  
"You broke -- the wall," she repeated, looking at Harry like he was going to explode any minute.  
  
"D'you want thirty points for Ravenclaw? Leave me alone."  
  
He shrugged Hedwig off and went to lay on his stomach on his bed, holding himself up by his elbows and then clutched his pillow.  
  
"What's going on up there?" he heard Uncle Vernon's muffled, angry voice shout from downstairs.  
  
"Nothing!" Cho shouted back. She then rounded on Harry and said, "What're you doing, laying there? Fix the wall!"  
  
"You fix the wall," said Harry dully.  
  
"Harry, come on," she said pleadingly. "I know you're going through some very rough times and --"  
  
"No you don't," Harry snapped.  
  
"Fine," said Cho irritably. "What DO you want me to do then? I'm trying to help you get through everything, Harry. And what the hell is wrong with you!?" she shouted angrily. "You were perfectly fine just a few minutes ago!"  
  
"Trying to help me get through what? You can help me by leaving me alone."  
  
Cho stormed out of the room and he heard her voice saying, "Don't go in his room. He'll probably turn you into a beetle."  
  
As Harry listened to Cho's footsteps die away descending the stairs, the strange spell of anger leaked out of him. He buried his head in his pillow, every fiber in him angry at himself, every part of him fighting back the impulse to shed a tear, every inch of him wishing he hadn't told Cho off. Every breath he exhaled seemed to get caught in his throat or was that him failing to stop himself from shedding a tear?  
  
"Why did you blow up on her?" came the very concerned voice of Raides.  
  
Harry really didn't feel like answering (he didn't know either) so he just continued to lay there, taking deep, calming breaths, sniffing occasionally, a total mess.  
  
"Don't be so hard on yourself," said Raides wisely. "Or do you like her that much?"  
  
Harry picked his head up and turned his neck to look at the elaborate rug on his floor, still clutching his pillow. Raides was facing the door. Harry guessed that she watched Cho leave.  
  
"No, I hate her guts. Of course I like her!" he snapped.  
  
Raides turned around and faced her beautiful head in Harry's direction, gazing up at him. They met each other's eyes.  
  
"She makes me --" Harry went on slowly, "she makes me feel better."  
  
Suspecting that Harry had gone temporarily soft, Raides said, "Go on, Harry, give me the details." She wanted to smile, but didn't think it would fit the mood.  
  
Harry turned his attention to the floor just under Raides. If he was going to give the details, it had to at least look like there was no one else in the room if he was going to be honest with himself.  
  
"Yesterday she bought a necklace that looked like this one," Harry kept going, picking up the Order of Merlin necklace -- and feeling very unhappy that it made him slightly calmer (and so he put it back down immediately) -- and showing it to Raides. "And when I grabbed it, it -- didn't do anything. I didn't feel bad -- I felt very good -- and that was the first time it didn't do anything when I -- you know."  
  
"No, I don't know," said Raides, knowing perfectly well.  
  
Harry took another deep breath and said, "It doesn't do anything when I'm feeling too sad but always does no matter how happy I am. There was just something that was right -- that I... didn't need it for."  
  
"Unless I'm mistaken, dear old Dumbledore gave you some wise words on that necklace about this very thing," said Raides suggestively.  
  
Harry didn't say them aloud at first but they came to him immediately. "I am afraid you will have to find the distinction between feelings battling each other and knowing when you are content with yourself on your own," Dumbledore had said. These words came to Harry during a long speech after Harry had found out what had happened to Sirius last year. After a full minute's silence, he did say them aloud.  
  
"Now, why don't you tell Cho this?" Raides asked immediately after Harry finished, raising her scarlet tail in curiosity. Harry's eyes met Raides' again for a brief moment and then he suddenly became interested in a familiar pen on his desk.  
  
"I can't," said Harry at once. "That would be like telling her that I --" but he abruptly stopped talking.  
  
There was a pause, and then --  
  
"That you what?" asked Raides.  
  
"Nevermind."  
  
"That you what?" Raides repeated loudly. "Why can't you?"  
  
"I said nevermind," said Harry even more loudly.  
  
Raides, not wanting to further upset Harry, gave up. She wagged her tail nervously a few times, not knowing what to expect next.  
  
"So," she said, trying to spark a new conversation.  
  
"What?" croaked Harry, feeling thoroughly horrible.  
  
He sat up, crossed the room, picked up his wand, pointed it at the wall and shouted, "Paries Reparo!" then watched, a dull look in his eye, while the bits of smashed wood and paint chips climbed the wall and slid back into place.  
  
"I'd write to someone but I don't know who," Harry said gloomily.  
  
"Why write when she's just downstairs?" Raides said.  
  
Raides was right, Harry wanted to talk to her but couldn't find the nerve. She was down there all right, and would be for all of the coming days leading to September first. Cho hadn't been speaking to Harry much since then and he figured she might as well go home. Raides told him, just a day later, that she asked Cho why she was still staying. While Raides wouldn't tell Harry why, he had the distinct feeling it had something to do with the breakfast that was sitting in his room for him each morning ever since that day.  
  
Harry crossed off every day on his calendar until his return to Hogwarts, looking forward to leaving the confines of Privet Drive now more than ever. One week after that day, Cho could be heard saying good morning to Harry but beyond that, it was just a nod of the head or wave of a hand and that was the extent of her acknowledgement of him. Harry felt he deserved it for having exploded on her for no reason and what further upset him was that he didn't have any reason in particular for having done so.  
  
One or two good things had come out of recent events. Aunt Marge, whether it be fear or having had a talk with Aunt Petunia (or more likely, Raides), ceased her torture of Harry. Instead, she did the best possible thing she could do: she ignored him completely. Realizing he was right in his assumption that Cho didn't hate him completely, he watched as Cho shot Aunt Marge dirty looks when none but he or Raides could see.  
  
One night in particular, a very, very strange conversation for the inhabitants of Privet Drive, one Harry thought would never take place, had broken out over dinner and it would appear that Cho and Aunt Petunia had sparked it. While talking about Dudley and Smeltings, the school his parents had sent him to after he finished with the first few years of public school, the conversation had slipped onto --  
  
"Hogwarts," said Raides.  
  
She was sitting on Harry's side, peacefully sipping a bowl of fat free milk (even magical staves that can transform into animals have to watch their diet) and munching on a dead racoon Hedwig had brought for her. Every now and then, one of the Dursleys or Aunt Marge would take a quick, nervous glance at her. While they seemed satisfied that she wasn't dangerous, being seven feet long didn't stop her from being intimidating.  
  
Harry kept munching on his spaghetti and meatballs, hardly daring to believe his ears.  
  
Aunt Marge took a big gulp of her tea, wiped her mouth with a shovel-like hand and said, "Where is this -- this school?"  
  
"Far north," said Cho thickly, munching on a pepper. "North of Edinburgh. They take a train there. Takes just about all day."  
  
For the first time in two weeks, Harry and Cho caught each other's eye and Harry nodded at Aunt Marge in agreement with Cho.  
  
"I remember Har- -- you, boy, saying something about platform nine and three-quarters?" Uncle Vernon said, looking strained. Raides rolled her eyes each time Uncle Vernon referred to Harry as "the boy." That, and Harry noticed that his uncle had purposely held back from saying his name. "What was that about?"  
  
Harry, smiled, dribbling pasta sauce down down his mouth. He wiped it with a napkin and said, "You have to walk through a wall -- it's not actually solid -- and when you do, it sort of -- sort of teleports you and you're at platform nine and three-quarters."  
  
"It works something like a Portkey, Harry," Cho said to him.  
  
"Oh?" Harry said, interested.  
  
"Professor Flitwick covers charms like that one in the seventh year."  
  
Harry opened his mouth, a silent "Ahh!" escaping it, nodding.  
  
Uncle Vernon looked between the two of them and said, "That's the first time I've seen you two --"  
  
"Why don't you tell them what happens when first year students get there, Harry?" said Raides loudly. "I'm sure Dudley would be interested -- seeing as his parents are thinking of sending him," she added, glancing sidelong at Aunt Petunia.  
  
"Hagrid, the gameskeeper, sees them onto boats and they float across the river up towards the castle. When they --"  
  
"There's a castle?" said Dudley excitedly.  
  
He seemed to forget that he didn't really like wizards and witches and Aunt Petunia seemed to be fighting back the impulse to tell off Harry. Harry, wanting to keep Dudley's excitement up, plunged into the history of Hogwarts -- or at least what he could remember from what Hermione had told him.  
  
"The castle's a thousand years old. It had four founders. Their names were Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw -- at least I think so on those last two, hardly anyone ever mentions them." He paused for a good minute and took the time to eat more of his dinner, waiting to see if anyone was going to object to his explanation. Harry couldn't tell if the Dursleys were keeping quiet because they were interested or Harry scared them silent.  
  
"When they were alive," he went on after he finishing chewing, "they handpicked students to be in one of their Houses to be taught by them. All of them wanted to teach students with different qualities. For example, the people in Slytherin are very nasty and devious. People in Gryffinor are" -- and he turned slightly pinkish -- "supposed to be brave and courageous. There was a lot of rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin. Just before all of them died, Gryffindor enchanted his hat so it can pick for them. First year students put it on and it shouts the House the founders would have picked for them and they go into that House."  
  
"What House are you two in?" Dudley asked.  
  
"I graduated last year," said Cho, "I was in Ravenclaw. Harry's in Gryffindor." Ignoring everyone else's presence and why she was currently angry with him, she added, "And he's very brave, aren't you, Harry?" while giggling softly.  
  
And he turned even more pink.  
  
"What can they possibly teach there?" said Aunt Petunia. Harry was surprised to see that she looked mildly interested.  
  
Harry swallowed the bit of meatball in his mouth and said, "Er -- they teach you all about magic and -- er -- our -- history." Aunt Marge looked at him funny. Being Muggles, the Dursleys had nothing to do with goblin rebellions or the culture of house elves. Harry, having a father who came from a long, long line of wizards, had come from what could only be described as a different world. "Magical creatures like trolls and hobgoglins --"  
  
"Those really exist?" said Dudley, still sounding excited and shoving a bit of bread in his mouth with a pudgy finger.  
  
"Yes," said Harry firmly, the pink color receeding from his face. "They had dragons at the school three years ago as part of a tournament. In fact, they're having that tournament again this year," he added, grinning at Cho, who, he wasn't happy to see, didn't return it.  
  
He couldn't figure out whether it was because she was mad at him again or she didn't want him to even think of participating in the Triwizard Tournament. Dudley was looking at Harry with an expression of awe and a twinkle in his eye that Harry never saw before. He could swear Dudley would be drooling if he wasn't rapidly chewing his food.  
  
"They usually have an inter-house Quidditch Cup -- that's a sport for wizards -- but the tournament takes up so much time they have to cancel it," Harry explained. "Er -- Aunt Marge, when I said I was going to play Quidditch, well..."  
  
She looked at him over the top of her tea glass and understood the clue. She knew now that Harry hadn't gone to play a new sport made up by St. Brutus', though Harry still wasn't sure she was interested in seeing a game of Quidditch... And then, quite suddenly, something dawned on Harry. He was talking at the dinner table with the Dursleys... about school! He had never done that in his life, it was like they were his -- no, they weren't. Why did I even think of that, he thought bitterly. Harry kept this little revelation to himself, to be revealed at a later time and answered yes to Dudley's question about whether Harry had entered the tournament last time.  
  
"The thing is, I didn't want to," he explained.  
  
"You didn't want to," said Uncle Vernon flatly, "but you did anyway." It was more of a statement then a question.  
  
"I don't want to explain it," Harry said heavily, twirling the last mound of spaghetti in his plate on his fork. "You," he added to Cho. Harry put his fork down, took a sip of his drink and pushed his plate away. His throat had mysteriously stopped working.  
  
"It's called the Triwizard Tournament," Cho began, shifting her eyes slowly between all of the Dursleys, not noticing she was staring extra hard when turning to Aunt Marge. "They stopped holding it about a hundred years ago because the death toll rose too high. Three years ago, Hogwarts hosted it and two other wizarding schools, Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and the Durmstrang Institute sent their headmaster and a bunch of students. This cup called the Goblet of Fire is what they use to determine who's worthy enough to be in the tournament. They obviously don't want anyone to die so the goblet is supposed to pick the most adept people, one from each school. You put your name and school on a piece of paper, stick it in the goblet and when the date, set by magic, comes, the goblet spits out the pieces of paper, one from each school, of the student's name."  
  
By the time Cho finished the first part of her story, the Dursleys had all forgotten about their dinner and were goggling at her.  
  
"Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang all had their champions for the tournament selected. Someone had slipped Harry's name into the goblet because they were planning to" -- and she shot Harry a half nervous, half scared look "-- kill him," she finished dramatically.  
  
Harry distinctly saw Aunt Petunia's hand move as if she were going to cover her mouth with it in horror but she was a horrible actor and her face became painted with a fitting expression.  
  
Cho sighed and said, "Oh I might as well tell you everything, then, because I have to if you want to know who did it and why."  
  
Aunt Marge waved a hand, inviting her to go on and Cho plunged into the story about Voldemort when Harry was just a year old. She instinctively referred to Voldemort as "You-Know-Who" and winced when Harry had corrected her by saying the name and told them that this was Voldemort, the person who was causing all the deaths of Muggles and had done so so many years before, as well. She was keen on telling how people disappeared and all about the mass murders she had heard about and how all of this was fun to Voldemort and his followers. Cho then explained how Voldemort had been trying to rise to power again in Harry's fourth year and finally did during the fiasco of the Triwizard Cup. It then took her a good hour to explain last year's events and the story of Raides. When she finished, all of the Dursley's mouths were hanging open.  
  
"Oooh, do I remember him," said Uncle Vernon fiercely, his face turning the usual purple. "Petunia, do you remember Charlie?"  
  
"Charlie?" she said, her brow furrowed. "He disappeared a long time ago... Fiona said he went on vacation to Australia."  
  
"For twenty years?" Uncle Vernon said as if his wife was stupid. "He's dead!"  
  
That time, Aunt Petunia didn't hold her hand back from covering her mouth.  
  
"Why don't they just kill him and get it over with?" Dudley suggested.  
  
"Because we can't," Cho told him grimly, staring directly into Dudley's eyes and trying her very best to incite fear into him. "He's played around with being immortal. He should have died both times that curse failed on Harry. And no one knows why he wants to kill Harry or why he lived twice," she added before any words escaped Dudley's mouth.  
  
"That's great," said Uncle Vernon angrily. "No one can kill him?"  
  
"That's right," said Cho.  
  
"Unless someone comes up with a miracle," Harry said, "we're stuck with him until all his follower's are caught and he's ripped from his body again. One of his followers is someone I really hate by the name of Lucius Malfoy... Most of them said Voldemort controlled them and got out of getting sent to the wizard prison, Azkaban, which, mind you, you don't even want to visit. It's that bad."  
  
"Why not?" said Dudley disbelievingly.  
  
"I you told you two about it, once," Harry said, looking between Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. He felt his insides turn cold at the very thought. No sound escaped his throat anymore, yet his mouth was moving... Cho turned to look at him.  
  
"It's guarded by creatures called dementors," Cho said, noticing Harry's difficulty and then turning her attention to the Dursleys. "Non-wizards can't see them but you'll still feel their effects. They make you feel like utter crap -- really bad -- and you can only remember anything bad that ever happened to you, nothing good."  
  
And there Harry sat, sitting before the very people that helped make it possible for a dementor to cause Harry to go unconscious every time he got too near one of them.   
  
"Can we -- er -- switch to a different subject," said Harry as a block of ice swam up and down his back.  
  
"Ah, yes, well, it's getting late," said Uncle Vernon, looking at his watch.  
  
Harry looked down at his golden watch and saw that it was half past eleven. Where had all the time gone?  
  
Cho still hadn't come up to his room to sleep there. He had gotten the feeling she wanted him to say something but, not knowing the mind of a girl very well, he simply didn't know what. Harry had the crazy idea of talking to Aunt Petunia about the subject but thought, upon reflection, that part of the reason for the conversation that night was Raides sitting next to them all, keeping them utterly terrified about badmouthing Harry or, for that matter, wizards in general. He then thought about talking to Raides but forgot that she was just a staff and not a human girl by any means and writing to Hermione was just plain embarassing. For all he knew, she was going to write to Cho's parents and tell them about it and he simply couldn't have that. 


	12. Muggles in Diagon Alley

Chapter 12: MUGGLES IN DIAGON ALLEY  
  
Another good thing came of this, though. Dudley had, to everyone's surprise, convinced the Dursleys to send him to Hogwarts. Oh, but just for a year, of course, and then not do it again the next year, no way... His aunt and uncle insisted it was because they had a money problem sending Dudley to college but Harry knew better: they certainly had no such problem, they just wanted to use Harry's gold. To further convince them, Harry offered to pay for Dudley's school supplies ("You better," snarled Uncle Vernon harshly).  
  
Harry and Cho took Dudley to the Leaky Cauldron, Aunt Petunia having driven them there. The Leaky Cauldron was a pub, hidden by magic to Muggles who didn't know any better. The pub itself hid the entrance to Diagon Alley. One had to tap bricks in the correct order to get them to split to reveal Diagon Alley. Harry having forgotten, Raides roared at it and it opened. Cho insisted Harry take Raides with them, concealed under the Invisibility Cloak, and then let her out once they got into the Leaky Cauldron. Everyone in the pub had stopped what they were drinking, eating or talking about to look at Raides as she swept past them.  
  
Upon entering Diagon Alley, Dudley's first instinct was to run right into the magical creatures shop and buy the first bat he saw. Harry told him to look down at his Hogwarts supplies list and point out that it said owl, cat or toad and not bat, rat or komodo dragon. Aunt Petunia cringed at the sight of the bats lining the ceiling of the shop, all sitting upside down, their small, leathery wings covering their sickly furry bodies.  
  
After getting some money from Harry's vault at Gringott's, the wizard bank, enough for both Harry and Dudley, Aunt Petunia needed to sit for a good fifteen minutes outside on a bench to get rid of the putrid boogey color in her face. Harry knew that the carts you used to get around the vaults in Gringott's made Hagrid sick, too. Returning to the Magical Menagerie, Dudley chose a small frog that reminded Harry of a sickly green one that had contracted a deadly disease that was shown on the Discovery Channel. Dudley blessed the sickly green frog with the name Prince.  
  
Dudley was particularly not keen on the measuring tape used in Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. It measured one's body all by itself. Madam Malkin said she had never had a customer as wide as Dudley and needed to get out her extra-large measuring tape as the usual one wasn't long enough. Dudley insisted he be given a different colored cloak than everyone else as black wasn't his favorite color. Harry watched, laughing silently to himself with Cho as Aunt Petunia pleaded with Madam Malkin but she said no very firmly once and that was the end of the bickering. Dudley walked out of the shop all sulky.  
  
Harry allowed himself to be measured up for some new robes as well and then, needing dress robes for the Yule Ball at Hogwarts, pulled a Mrs. Weasley and got ones the same color she had gotten him: the green color of his eyes. The champions for each school started the dancing on the floor with their partners and then, shortly after, the rest of the students were allowed to get up and dance. Harry had asked Cho, but she had already been asked by Cedric Diggory, which left a one way road of bad feelings from Harry to him.  
  
Harry would have happily bought Ron robes, too, but he would never let Harry spend money on him. Ron had been forced to wear frilly maroon robes that resembled a dress. He tried to trim them but did so messily, leaving the ends frayed. Dudley sniggered while Madam Malkin fitted Harry up for his new ones.  
  
"And just so you know, anyone under fourth year isn't allowed to go unless they get a partner fourth year or up," Harry told Dudley, smiling.  
  
"And who are you going to go with?" Dudley sneered, forgetting about Cho, who was in Harry's view, but standing behind Dudley so he couldn't see her. Harry's view automatically shifted towards her but somehow he didn't think he'd be allowed to ask her to the ball since she didn't go to Hogwarts anymore. The smile slowly melted off his face; he would certainly have to ask when the time came.  
  
As soon as he had the dress robes safely away in a bag, Harry immediately went to buy quills, ink and parchment. Seeing as how all his quills were old and dirty, a very nice, eye-catching phoenix-feather quill caught his eye.  
  
"Ah, Mr. Potter," said the shop-keeper in a misty voice, immediately recognizing him by the lightning scar on his forehead which unnerved Aunt Petunia, "an excellent choice."  
  
He payed the seven sickles for it and the shop-keeper (on purpose, Harry realized, as they all exited the shop) had given him another one for free, stuffing it in the bag without him seeing.  
  
Harry's aunt was not too happy about buying potion ingredients.  
  
"Who d'you reckon is going to be the professor for Potions?" Harry asked Cho as they stepped inside the Apothecary.  
  
"No idea," Cho replied. "Hope it's someone nice even though I'm no longer there. I still have nightmares about Snape's classes."  
  
Peering down, Harry saw that his list consisted of dragon toenails and a gross item that reminded him of what you get when you mix swirly brown stuff with grease from Snape's hair and smelling twice as nasty. The witch running the shop put on a gas mask, ordered them to hold their fingers over their noses, opened the big container and dumped the thick glop into a jar and sealed it with a top and Odor-Occluder Charm. Harry could still smell it, his fingers pressed so tightly over his nose it felt like he was flattening it like a pancake.  
  
When the witch closed the container, she pointed her wand up, shouted, "Fragrodorus!" and a misty, pink cloud flew out of it. Immediately, the room smelled better and she told everyone to uncover their noses. Aunt Petunia took extra large breaths, apparently liking the new fragrance. Harry would be sure to remember this spell in case it ever came in handy and with such a potion ingredient, he didn't doubt whether he would have been stupid not to.  
  
Mr. Ollivander, the owner of a shop by the same name, greeted Harry with a handshake but looked ready to faint at the sight of Raides. Aunt Petunia stood outside for a minute, however, gazing up at the sign saying this store had been stablished in 382 B.C.  
  
"O-oh m-my!" he croaked, staring at Raides' beautiful, golden fur.  
  
Raides launched herself onto a table and rested her head on a paw.  
  
"You've heard of Animagi... but not Anistaffi?" she said, grinning.  
  
Yet Mr. Ollivander kept staring at her, his hands folded in front of him, his eyes darting to a quill and piece of parchment, going through a great internal struggle. For a ridiculous second, Harry thought Mr. Ollivander wanted Raides' autograph. Aunt Petunia then walked in and seated herself on a nearby creaky chair.  
  
"Want to me see as a staff, then?" said Raides, reading his mind.  
  
Mr. Ollivander's pale eyes turned paler and he smiled weakly. He had spoken to Harry about the Staff of Cybele to him very fervently just last year but, like other wizards, didn't believe it existed. And now here it was, talking to him. It was like watching a baby who'd had a first taste of chocolate. Or like Ron after he had gotten an autograph from Victor Krum.  
  
Raides stood up on the table and launched herself at Harry, turning into the enormous Staff of Cybele in mid-flight. Harry had become quite adept at catching her when she did this.  
  
"Don't think of using her, though," Harry warned Mr. Ollivander, grinning. "She gets testy."  
  
"She doesn't want anyone but ancients using her, correct?" said Mr. Ollivander and then he started muttering soundlessly to himself.  
  
"Yes," said Harry.  
  
"It's just a staff," said Aunt Petunia and then everyone stared at her.  
  
Mr. Ollivander's attention was quickly diverted to the Staff of Cybele, though, as the crystal disappeared from the lion's mouth and Raides began speaking, the tiny little mouthing moving just as her bigger one did.  
  
"Hun, you only wish you had fur that looked this good," she growled looking at Aunt Petunia like she was a piece of nature that was way beneath her. "I look this good at over five thousand years old. And you're what, sixty?" Aunt Petunia looked outraged and Harry and Cho were giggling. Raides sighed. "It's not all good. It's a real pain to clean all this fur... And don't you dare think of giving me a sponge bath."  
  
Harry held Raides on her end, upright. She was easily at least two feet taller than him and would make quite a good weapon even if he wasn't going to use magic.  
  
"Doesn't that hurt?" said Cho, looking at how Raides' tail was supporting her.  
  
"Oh, I don't feel any pain," Raides informed her. "Ahem. Enough about me. This boy needs a wand, yes?"  
  
"Right, right," muttered Mr. Ollivander and he swept into the back room.  
  
Harry clutched Raides with both hands and pulled her close to his face, leaning on her. His feet were tired from walking around all day. Dudley spent forever goggling at Harry's stockpile of gold back at Gringott's and Aunt Petunia had given him a tirade on how he failed to mention he was hiding a mountain of gold from them. It was finally when Griphook, the goblin that brought them down, screamed at them to get going, saying that others were waiting to get to their vaults that they stopped at once. Aunt Petunia instinctively walked very close to Raides and Harry when she saw the first goblin inside the bank...  
  
Mr. Ollivander returned with an armful of boxes of wands and opened one. The wand inside was a tintish of red with a purely wooden-colored handle. Short, about ten inches. He stuck it in Dudley's hand and told him to wave it. Dudley, feeling very stupid, waved it like one waves their finger in front of a television to get that stupid see-my-finger-one-hundred-times effect and was very upset to see that nothing had happened.  
  
Mr. Ollivander opened wand after wand, stuffing sticks of wood ranging from nine inches to enormous wands that looked more like the size of a small staff, weighing in at fifteen inches. One time when Dudley waved a rosewood wand containing the hair of a veela, very beautiful women who had the strange effect on men of making them swoon, something behind Mr. Ollivander fell. Dudley thought it was his prowess at magic but it was just that, in his haste to grab as many wand boxes as possible, Mr. Ollivander had not realized that one was about to fall off of it's shelf. Aunt Petunia grabbed the wand from her son's hand, shook it violently, muttering, "stupid wood," and dropped it immediately when green and silver sparks erupted from it's tip. Harry grinned; those were the colors of Slytherin House.  
  
"Ah," said Mr. Ollivander dramatically, "you might consider attending Hogwarts! After all, it would appear that you do have the gift -"  
  
"No, thank you," Aunt Petunia replied shortly, sitting back down in her chair and ignoring the stifled sniggers from Harry and Cho.  
  
After a half hour, Mr. Ollivander picked up a staff sitting on a chair, waved it at the open boxes of wands, none of them having worked for Dudley and muttered something. Instantly, all of the wands flew into their appropriate boxes and he magicked them back onto the proper shelves. Despite the fact that after what had to be fifty wands failed, Mr. Ollivander looked excited as ever, quite like he had been when Harry had been put through the same ordeal. His pale eyes glittering with delight, Mr. Ollivander strode back into the back room and out of sight.  
  
"How long are we going to be here!" whined a hungry Dudley. "My stomach's growling and my feet hurt."  
  
"He put me through the same thing," Harry told his cousin, stilling leaning on Raides like she were a soft, furry pole. He noticed that she had been very straight. Harry looked down and saw that her tail was keeping her perfectly still even when Harry's balance tried to tip her towards him so that they both fell over.  
  
"So... anyone heard that one about the hag, the vampire and the phantom?" said Raides, breaking the boring silence.  
  
Mr. Ollivander returned with another armful of boxes of wands.  
  
Dudley spent ten minutes trying out wands before Mr. Ollivander took everyone by surprise and called him a stupid Muggle boy and showed him how to wave a wand properly. Harry had a feeling Dudley was worse than a Squib, a person born into a wizarding family with not a drop of wizard blood in them. Neville Longbottom, a boy in Harry's year blessed with a horrible memory, was one of Harry's friends and nearly a Squib. The Hogwarts caretaker, Argus Filch was completely a Squib. He couldn't do magic if you shouted "MUGGLE!" in his ear and gave him a staff.  
  
Finally, after another ten minutes, one wand, a very strange one that Mr. Ollivander took the time to point out that no one had ever tried, let Dudley emit blue and red sparks from. It was short at eight inches, very dark-brown and made of birchwood. Only a few of them were ever made, because it's core, a dragon's eye, was a mighty hard ingredient to convince someone to use for a wand.  
  
Dragon eye wands, Mr. Ollivander explained, were for those wizards who would otherwise have been declared Squibs. They had to squeeze the eyes to fit into the wand core and making it even harder to use as a core, the wand-maker had to prevent the juice from going anywhere but inside the wand. Further increasing difficulty was the careful Charm placed on the wand to prevent the dragon eye juice from destroying the wood. Dragon eyes had other uses, particularly potions. Harry had several dragon eyes.  
  
"Neville's going to be happy," Harry whispered to Cho as they left Mr. Ollivander's shop.  
  
Dudley tried to complain about his feet hurting, seeing as how Harry had been leaning on Raides the entire time in the wand shop, and seemed to be trying to convince Raides to let him ride on her back. She slapped him forcefully on the lower leg with her very powerful scarlet tail and told him to lose some weight again.  
  
Harry peered down at his Hogwarts letter and saw that he needed a few new books and, most depressing, he needed three new ones for Divination.  
  
A Cloudy Future by Claire Pordent  
Runes As Limns Lucy Rucid  
Elucidating the Myrrh by Meredith Rucid  
  
"Lets get your books, Dudley," said Harry.  
  
They headed towards Flourish and Blotts, the bookstore in Diagon Alley and upon entering --  
  
"Ron!" said Harry, picking up his pace a little. "Hey!"  
  
"Oh, hey, Harry!" Ron called back.  
  
"Get a load of your Divination list?" Harry said, frowning, now inside the bookshop and glancing between his list and Ron's, which was exactly the same.  
  
"Yeah," said Ron, frowning even more. "And there's a bit of a problem."  
  
Ron, very suddenly, took his list out of view of Harry and walked over to his mother, Molly Weasley. Harry stood there for a second, watching them talk to each other so low that he couldn't make out a word of it, her patting him on the back a few times. It looked like they were almost having an arguement. Mrs. Weasley noticed Harry and she looked in his direction, smiling and waving, before turning back to Ron and going back to a very serious face.  
  
Concerned, Harry finally dropped the arm that was still holding his list up, pointed Aunt Petunia and Dudley to the first years' book section and walked over to Ron and Mrs. Weasley who abruptly stopped talking as if they didn't want Harry to hear.  
  
"What's wrong?" asked Harry simply.  
  
"Oh," said Ron, avoiding Harry's gaze, "nothing."  
  
Mrs. Weasley looked sharply at Ron, put her fists on her hips, cocked her head and sighed deeply, looking at Harry. Harry blinked. She tutted.  
  
"It's just what with the cost of getting Fire Quidditch tickets, Arthur working overtime, the expense for him traveling all around the country" -- and she sighed again and Harry understood without her finishing -- "we happen to be in a spot of trouble where money is concerned... And you know, grade seven books are usually quite expensive."  
  
The Weasleys, having seven children, two in Hogwarts, had been strapped for money for as long as Harry knew them. Ron had been given hand-me-downs ever since he entered Hogwarts, as had Ginny, and Ron was always very uncomfortable talking about it. He knew well, though, that Harry would happily split his fortune, sitting in Gringotts, with the Weasleys but they would never accept it.  
  
"I thought they let you go for free like they did last year and the year before?" Harry asked, confused.  
  
Being part of the game and going with the Weasleys, the Ministry of Magic had let the Weasleys go to the game for free.  
  
"This year," said Ron heavily, "they wouldn't because of Vol -- er -- You-Know-Who. Mr. Fudge says the Ministry's strapped for cash, too. Dad's boss is such a --"  
  
Mrs. Weasley tugged on his arm.  
  
"Ron!" she hissed. "Don't say such things about Cornelius! Wait 'till we get home! Don't you remember me telling you this? Then no one can quote you on it!"  
  
Harry tried hard to stop himself from laughing. Mrs. Weasley obviously agreed the once at least partially-approachable Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, had turned slightly mean in the wake of Voldemort.  
  
"Look," Harry said, "here..."  
  
Harry took his money bag out of his pocket, pulled out enough golden Galleons to buy both Ginny's and Ron's sets of books, put the bag back in his pocket, opened Ron's forcibly closed fist, ignored Mrs. Weasley's gaping, stuffed the money in Ron's hand and said, "Take it."  
  
"Harry, dear --" started Mrs. Weasley nervously...  
  
"Take it," Harry repeated firmly. "I owe you a lot, Mrs. Weasley. Almost every summer... it's the least I could do. And you don't have to pay me back."  
  
Mrs. Weasley laughed nervously. "I insist we do," she said.  
  
Harry then went around with Ron, buying their books. Cho hesitantly agreed to escort Dudley around to get his books. After paying, Mrs. Weasley said they had to make their way back to the Burrow as soon as possible but they didn't fool Harry. It was obvious that both of them were still feeling quite awkward, having had Harry force them to take money from him. He wished he could do it more often as he had a lot of repaying to do for the Weasleys for all the time he had spent at their house... it was, after all, the least he could do.  
  
After splitting up with the Weasleys, Harry, Cho, Dudley, Aunt Petunia and Raides, Dudley whimpering of sore feet, they walked back towards the Leaky Cauldron, covered Raides with the Invisbility Cloak and then drove all the way back to number four, Privet Drive. Harry, Raides and Cho all agreed they had a great time in Diagon Alley. Dudley and Aunt Petunia strongly disagreed.  
  
Getting back to Privet Drive, Uncle Vernon didn't even want to look at Dudley's new things. Aunt Marge wasn't remotely interested. But Harry was happy. September the first was only a week away and the entire time, Dudley became increasingly friendly towards Harry, a side-effect that Harry himself would probably never get used to.  
  
September the first did come and for the first time ever, Privet Drive was awake at the crack of dawn for two of their number to head off to King's Cross and platform nine and three-quarters.  
  
"DUDLEY, YOU BETTER HAVE PACKED THOSE EXTRA PAIRS OF SOCKS I BOUGHT FOR YOU YESTERDAY!" wailed Aunt Petunia from the laundry room to her son who was in the kitchen eating his breakfast.  
  
"I DID, MOM!" he roared back.  
  
Harry was keen on taking a familiar pen that was on his desk, even though at Hogwarts, you used quills and bottles of ink. It was a momento, Harry told himself for the hundredth time as he looked at it and then at Cho, knowing he would be without her for a good ten months, a momento of Cho...  
  
"AND IF ANY OF THOSE FREAKS TRY TO GET YOU TO COME BACK NEXT YEAR, YOU REMEMBER WHAT I TOLD YOU, SON!" thundered Uncle Vernon from the bathroom to his son who was now licking his plate clean.  
  
"I WILL, DAD!" he shouted back.  
  
Cho had been helping Harry pack the last of his things and in general, make sure he was ready to catch the train in time. While the Dursleys helped Dudley to get ready, Harry was left on his own to make sure not to forget anything, to pack every last bit of clothing (Cho made sure he didn't forget the clothes they bought at the mall), made sure he actually had breakfast and then made sure Raides wasn't torturing Aunt Marge.  
  
"You do realize we're not all going to fit in the car," Harry told Cho.  
  
"We'll manage," she assured him. "Dudley takes up three seats. We can all just sit on his lap. Either that or Raides will show you a new Reduction Charm," she said, letting out a short lived giggle.  
  
Harry did, too. They both sighed at Dudley's expense and found themselves staring each other in the eye. Harry blinked.  
  
"I'm gonna miss you, you know," he said.  
  
"Oh, don't get all soppy on me," said Cho. "It's just not you. One year left and we can decide from there. You don't want to stay here the rest of your life do you?"  
  
"Ha!" Harry said as he turned around and ushered Hedwig into her cage. "Of course not."  
  
"You know, I've been thinking about that -- that night. The one where you..." Harry grunted to show he understood. Cho was referring to the night she said three little words to him. "I really did mean it, you know, because I do..."  
  
Harry felt like his body was starting to freeze up again. The words echoed like a distant memory in his head. "I love you," she said to him. It was like a brick wall forming around him. His brain just couldn't accept what had reached his ears that night and it didn't look like it was any more ready to process it now, either.  
  
"Look, if you can't tell me you do, at least show me," Cho said, grabbing Harry's arm and turning him around. "It's important to me..."  
  
There was a slightly depressing expression on her face as she cocked her head to the side and looked unblinkingly at him.  
  
It would have been better if she asked him to do that before bringing that other night up. His body was locked again. His mouth wasn't moving. He had become numb. And he still had no idea why other than becoming flooded with a sense of emotions... and he hated himself for it. Harry wasn't at all helped by the salt water showing itself at the edge of Cho's eyes.  
  
Her bottom lip quivered and Harry felt her warmth before she even did it. She held him tight and he had just enough of his own strength to drop the scarf in his hand and hug her back.  
  
It was these very actions from her that made him feel things he never normally felt but it still left him wanting. Holding her close to himself, his eyes closed and he didn't really care if she never let go. Harry quickly recalled the time he could ever recall a similiar feeling. Mrs. Weasley had hugged him in his fourth year just after he had witnessed Voldemort rising after his first downfall.  
  
His mother's face, the voice of his father, the sight of Cedric Diggory spread-eagled on the ground, dead... all of it wanted to come out and he screwed his face up in an effort to stem the waterworks. He didn't think if such a thing ever happened again that he would be so successful, until Cho said it again --  
  
"You stupid prat!" she said, dripping tears on Harry's shoulder as she rested her chin on it. "I still love you!"  
  
Harry broke apart from her so quickly it was rude. He picked up the scarf from the floor, put it in the trunk and shut it. In the few seconds terrible silence, he truly feared what Cho was going to say. He just hoped she would understand but he doubted that she would... Harry's eyes moved lazily from his closed trunk to Hedwig's open cage.  
  
Cho drew in a breath and said heavily, "Fine," as she exhaled. "I don't get you! Why?"  
  
Why, why, why did he had to freeze up!  
  
"Fine," she said crossly. "But I'm only coming in the car with you because my Aunt Blossom is meeting me at King's Cross."  
  
Harry picked up his trunk and turned around and saw her staring at him like a hawk. He didn't catch her eye -- he didn't even catch her head -- and walked out of the room.  
  
Within the next ten minutes, everyone had eaten, both Harry and Dudley had packed their trunks, Dudley had put Prince in a container, complete with holes for breathing and Hedwig's cage door was closed. Cho was clearly upset and there wasn't a thing Harry could do. Though he very much wanted to say the words back to her, his mouth wouldn't contort itself to even say the first one. 


	13. A Sorting Blunder

Chapter 13: A SORTING BLUNDER  
  
In the Dursley car, Dudley sat up front with his uncle. Bony Aunt Petuia was stuffed, very uncomfortably, in the middle seat and the back seat consisted of Harry and a very upset Cho. Raides had to suffer through a Reduction Charm so she would fit at all and on top of that, not be seen by Muggles peering into a car packed with six people. Aunt Marge was back at Privet Drive, watching television. Harry didn't want her to come anyway.  
  
When Harry and Cho found the wall leading to platform nine and three-quarters, Harry, giggling, showed the Dursleys how to enter it and fell casually through, pushing his trunk and Hedwig's cage on a cart through it. Dudley came next, his hand held by his visibly trembling father. Aunt Petunia came last, followed closely by Cho.  
  
"Harry!"  
  
A wave of flaming red hair was running towards Harry. It was Ron Weasley.  
  
"So he really did get a letter, then!" said Ron, his mouth agape in a silent sort of laughter at Dudley with his sickly green frog.  
  
Harry's aunt and uncle avoided looking at Ron and instead surveyed their odd surroundings, particularly of note the scarlet steam engine that was the Hogwarts Express and the sign that read Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.  
  
"Oh, hello there, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley!" said Mrs. Weasley who was now striding over as well.  
  
She beckoned Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and Dudley over, leaving Harry, Ron, Hermione and Cho alone. Harry nervously enlarged the Staff of Cybele to it's normal size and Raides transformed into the great golden and scarlet lion (to many stares of most everyone on the platform).  
  
"Hello, Mrs. Dursley. Good-bye, Mrs. Dursley," said Hermione stiffly as she came up behind Ron. "Hello, Cho," she said much more brightly and completely ignoring Dudley altogether as he walked passed her.  
  
Cho folded her arms and Hermione gave Harry a desperate look, seeing as how Cho was avoiding his eyes altogether.  
  
"She's -- er -- not talking to me..." he told Hermione.  
  
"I can see that!" said Hermione. "What happened?" she added, turning to Cho.  
  
"Ask him," said Cho simply.  
  
Then she walked behind Harry and stared into nothingness. He turned to look at the back of her head. Harry's insides gave a squirm. It was going to cost every ounce of his breakfast to say what he was going to say next.  
  
"Cho --" he began but he paused and let the rest of his breath out before swallowing and then taking another one.  
  
He didn't particularly want to say it in front of Ron or Hermione but it was now or never. Cho was angry at him and he didn't like it. He didn't like it at all when she wasn't speaking to him and he certainly didn't like it now. Perhaps now that she hadn't said anything to him yet, he could say what he should have said to her back at Privet Drive?  
  
Harry tried to hard to pretend that Ron and Hermione weren't there, closed his eyes and, fighting down the urge to run, said, "My heart feels like it's -- like it's glowing when you're around me," he added quickly. "I -- this is going to sound really soppy --" he said slowly, "-- I can't say it. My throat just blocks up and I go numb. It's like -- er -- something you want to say that you're not used to and... and you care too much and your throat tightens..."  
  
Harry simply didn't know how to put into words what made him freeze every time she said it to him -- and he definitely wasn't going to try at all with Ron and Hermione around. He might not even be able to do it with Cho listening...  
  
"Wow," Ron said in an airy voice of amazement. "Harry, that was so poetic!"  
  
Both Harry and Cho ignored Ron but Hermione didn't -- she stepped on his foot and then smiled pleasantly at Harry when he turned around to see who tried to stifle a groan of pain.  
  
Harry was standing there, feeling stupid, waiting for Cho to turn around. He looked at his feet and nervously scratched the back of his head. She didn't turn around.  
  
"Come on, Cho!" said Harry pleadingly, his pulse rising in anxiety. "Look at me!"  
  
She still didn't. He had half a mind to tell Ron and Hermione to get lost. The other half went off on it's own.  
  
"It's just... you know, I... never... this stuff... not very good at it and -- and I'm sorry, but... well -- and I think that's pretty much everthing I'm going to be able to say..."  
  
Cho still hadn't turned around.  
  
A second later, a desperate Harry grabbed her by the arm and turned her around. He was extremely surprised to see that the expression on her face wasn't one of anger but was sporting tears of joy and her face was screwed up against an audible display of emotion.  
  
Her arms were still folded but her eyes were darting from him to the floor. She sniffed and wiped a tear out of her eye, making a mutated smile that was halfway between joy and wanting to slap Harry for not saying that earlier.  
  
Harry really didn't know what to do and so he sucked up all the pride that would have lasted him a good month and clutched the Order of Merlin plaque, feeling a wave of calmness that caused his shoulders to drop a good two inches.  
  
"We better go," he heard Hermione whisper to Ron and she dragged him away. Harry felt a rush of gratitude towards her.  
  
The next second, he had Cho in a one-armed hug and felt he could finally say it.  
  
"I - I love you," were a few words that slipped off his tongue.  
  
Feeling himself freeze and go numb again, he dropped the Order of Merlin plaque and held Cho properly. He wouldn't let go unless she did -- and truth be told, he probably couldn't anyway. For a few brief and deeply warming moments, he felt like he had been holding her for all of time and when she buried her face in his shoulder and sniffed, a feeling of loving warmth crept through him like he had never known, a sort of bond like he had never been shown. Harry wanted to hold onto this moment forever, not caring if anyone was watching.  
  
The sharp sound of the Hogwarts Express' whistle was what made Cho let go. She slid her hand down Harry's arm as they parted and she grabbed onto his hand. For the first time in six years of attending Hogwarts, he almost didn't want to go.  
  
"You better go. And don't worry about me, I'm feeling a lot better now," said Cho, now smiling pleasantly.  
  
Harry tore himself from the beautiful face of Cho and, Raides at his side, she saw him onto the Hogwarts Express, getting an empty compartment with Ron, Hermione and Dudley. Ignoring Ron and Hermione ("Harry, we're over here, not out there"), Harry watched Cho get smaller and smaller until she wasn't any bigger than the amount of attention he had been paying to Dudley.  
  
"So you really like her, huh?" said Ron, smiling broadly when Harry finally turned to look at him, Hermione and Dudley (who was staring quietly out the window, Prince's container in his lap).  
  
"Hush up, Ron," said Hermione. "How would you like it if I followed you around --"  
  
"Nah, it's okay," said Harry as he let Hedwig out of her cage.  
  
She perched herself on his knee and scowled at Prince through the tupperware Aunt Petunia had given him. It was going to smell permanently awful by the time she got it back...  
  
"Well then what was she upset at you for?" Hermione asked.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes at the thought.  
  
"Er -- a few weeks ago she said that -- that she loved me," Harry went on and Ron's eyes widened so big that Harry thought his eyeballs were going to fall out.  
  
"Oh, Harry!" she said excitedly. "But what she mad at you for about that?" Hermione asked.  
  
"I don't know," said Harry. "I was crossing off a day on that calendar and I just sorta -- sorta went numb and froze up," he added softly. He avoided the eyes of Hermione. "She tried to get me to talk to her and I... just couldn't. Didn't talk to me for about a week and then she did it again just this morning..."  
  
"So, what... have you two made up?"  
  
"Or made out?" said Ron.  
  
"HUSH!" Hermione said hotly, scowling at him.  
  
"Yeah, all down to this thing... again," said Harry gloomily, holding up the Order of Merlin plaque.  
  
"What's that?" said Dudley, speaking for the first time since he got out of the car.  
  
Harry couldn't help it. He grinned and looked at Ron and Hermione.  
  
"This explanation'll last us the entire trip there, Dudley," Harry informed him brightly. "Want to hear it?"  
  
Harry, Ron and Hermione plunged into the story of everything that had ever happened that didn't involve schoolwork during all their years at Hogwarts. The philosopher's stone during their first year, the chamber of secrets and the basilisk in their second...  
  
The plump witch pushing the cart with all the sweets on it came by midway through the explanation of Sirius in their third year. Dudley was keen on trying out Chocolate Frogs but was rather disturbed by Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. He enjoyed the Cauldron Cakes and Licorice Wands. Dudley having devoured more sweets in a one hour period than Ron usually does during the entire trip, Harry insisted it was a good idea that Dudley couldn't go to Hogsmeade, the only all-wizard village in Britian. Honeydukes, the fantastic sweets shop there, would never be the same after Dudley Dursley got to it.  
  
Harry, Ron and Hermione continued about Voldemort in their fourth year, the mark of ancients and Voldemort again in their fifth and the Book of Memories and Raides in their sixth. Rolling hills turned into creepy darkness as the story rolled on. Harry was happy to see that it had started raining around four in the afternoon. That meant Dudley would become soaked while riding the boast up the to the castle with the other first year students.  
  
By the time they finished, Dudley had the severed head of a Chocolate Frog sticking out his mouth and a wizard card from the Chocolate Frog box of Merlin clutched between two fingers, both items ready to fall out.  
  
But he didn't look remotely phased; it appeared he just liked a good story. "So what the bloody hell were you so surprised about when you got that necklace?" he asked.  
  
It was very unlike Dudley, to say the least. He was talking to Harry, friendly-like, even! Maybe, thought Harry, that was his way of trying to fit in. He would be talking to absolutely nobody right now, Harry reminded himself happily, if Dudley was cracking jokes about Harry.  
  
"D'you -- really -- need me to explain?" said Harry exasperatedly. He had an extremely strong urge to curse Dudley. "Er -- ten years with you and your parents" -- Harry tried hard not to listen to himself as he said it, he had a strong feeling it was going to make him upset again -- "Voldemort after me for the past several years, risking my life year after year..."  
  
Dudley blinked, staring with a blank expression on his face. He didn't get it.  
  
"I don't WANT to be famous!" Harry said more loudly, staring coldly at Dudley like Professor Snape often stared at Neville Longbottom, trying to get his very forgetful and blundering, near-Squib self to understand something. "I thought I was dead before I got it, Dudley," he said simply.  
  
Squibs were people born into wizarding families without an ounce of magical blood in them. Argus Filch, the caretaker, Harry had accidently found out, was a Squib. This helped explain Mr. Filch's extreme hatred towards all students...  
  
And then, staring at the still-blank expression on Dudley's face, "There's no use," Harry said to Ron and Hermione who both nodded in agreement.  
  
Harry didn't want to say anything else and Dudley was looking just as confused as before. Harry gripped the plaque for a few seconds to get his frustrations with Dudley out, suggesting they take the break to change into their school robes.  
  
"And you'll get a matching scarf when you're sorted," Harry told Dudley as he straightened his cloak.  
  
Dudley didn't look terribly happy to be dressing in this attire.  
  
"Sorted?" Dudley asked.  
  
Harry immediately started laughing with Ron.  
  
"When we get up to the castle," said Hermione, showing Dudley at least a little bit of respect, "the first place we go is the Great Hall which is where you eat and is the general meeting place. We told you this, you know. All the first years, soon as we get up there, go up to the front and get the Sorting Hat placed on their head. The hat's alive. It talks in your ear, deciding what house to put you in and then finally shouts it out. It's no big deal, really," she added, watching Dudley move uncomfortably in his seat.  
  
Farther and farther north they went and the conversation drifted onto school life at Hogwarts, rain lashing against the windows and the wind howling like the werewolves in the forbidden forest on the school grounds.  
  
"But you don't have to worry about Professor Snape this year," Ron told Dudley, Harry feeling himself shudder at the very thought. "You don't have anything to worry about, Harry. With him gone, it's an instant improvement. And besides, he was practically avoiding you ever since he tried to apologize to you!"  
  
"He didn't want to though, Ron," Hermione reminded him. "Dumbledore put him up to it."  
  
"And he better well have!" said Ron crossly. "Another year of his increasing bitterness and I would have broken all the bones in his body myself!"  
  
Harry remembered he had threatened Snape with such an act last year. The circumstances surely would have permitted it, Snape had dearly insulted Harry's father... but even so, Hermione gave Ron a piercing stare.  
  
"He would have deserved it, Hermione," Ron told her, thinking exactly what Harry was.  
  
Hermione looked like she was going to burst into a tirade about how one shouldn't threaten their teachers but then she remembered they were talking about Professor Snape and not, say, the likeable Professor Sprout they had for Herbology. She was struggling to find something to tell him off about, sputtering over words like "but," "shouldn't" and "detention" until she finally came out with simply, "Ron, no."  
  
Ron rolled his eyes, turned to Dudley and let him know that Snape is "a very, very nasty teacher. He's like the boogey-man times a million."  
  
Dudley didn't look like he had the nerve to ask why Professor Snape wasn't at Hogwarts this year and Harry, Ron and Hermione deliberately avoided telling Dudley about the houses, hoping he would feel as scared as possible while the Sorting Hat talked to him, if it had to.  
  
When topics for conversation had completely run out, Ron still had one left and he was very eager to talk about it.  
  
"Dad said Hogwarts was doing something big this year that they haven't ever done before," he said.  
  
Harry shoved the Wizard Card he was holding (of himself) into Dudley's hand to distract him and turned quickly to Ron.  
  
"Nothing? Didn't say anything at all?" Harry asked, not surprised.  
  
Neither of Ron's parents would tell that the Triwizard Tournament was to take place at Hogwarts either in their fourth year, they just said something big was happening.  
  
"At least no one's bugging us about it," said Hermione, referring to Malfoy teasing them that they didn't know. "We'll find out in a few hours."  
  
Harry and Ron nodded.  
  
"Did he say it was bigger than the Triwizard Tournament?" asked Hermione.  
  
"Loads bigger!" said Ron proudly. "He said it was costing Hogwarts a whole wad of money. They almost couldn't afford it but they really wanted to do it. Whatever it is, he said it would get everyone's mind off Voldemort."  
  
"Bigger than the Triwizard Tournament," Hermione muttered to herself. "What can POSSIBLY be bigger than the Triwizard Tournament?" she said aloud.  
  
They all started blankly at each other for a few minutes and then Dudley asked, "What's Parseltongue?"  
  
"Someone who can talk to snakes," said Harry without thinking.  
  
"You can -- can talk to snakes?" asked Dudley, eyeing Harry like he had just grown fangs and shedded skin.  
  
"Yes, you idiot. Don't you remember two summers ago?"  
  
"What happened two summers ago?"  
  
"I saved you and your parents' necks from getting bitten by two small snakes you had gotten. You don't remember that?"  
  
"Now I remember!" said Dudley. "And then you killed them..."  
  
"Hagrid had brought snakes exactly like that to class one day. You forgot that you could have died," said Harry exasperatedly, shaking his head, "but you remembered that I killed them..."  
  
When the Hogwarts Express came to a stop, Harry heard a familiar voice calling out.  
  
"Firs' years!"  
  
Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper and teacher of Care of Magical Creatures, was calling all the first years over for their trip to the castle by boat across the lake.  
  
"Off you go, Dudley!" said Harry, pointing his cousin who was trembling again to the door of the train as they opened.  
  
Dudley took one look at the torrential rain and upon stepping out, it didn't take long for his blond hair to get blown in every direction, looking almost as untidy as Harry's black hair did normally. He then let out a scream at the size of Hagrid (they had only met once before and, at least for Dudley, the experience hadn't been pleasant).  
  
Hermione bundled up her cat, Crookshanks, in a towel. Pigwidgeon, Ron's owl, wouldn't shut up and so Ron forcefully smacked the side of his cage with his hand -- and Pig, Ron's pet name for he thought Ginny Weasley chose a horrible name, still didn't keep quiet.  
  
Raides wasn't keen on traveling in wet weather. Harry asked her if she could put a Rain-Repellent Charm on them and she agreed to it, saying that it was a real pain to clean wet fur. And so Harry, Ron and Hermione joined the returning Hogwarts students to the hundred horseless carriages that brought them up to the castle now accompanied by Ginny who had found them by asking people where the really fat kid had been sitting.  
  
"What house do you think Dudley's going to be in?" Hermione asked, watching the Hogwarts Express become smaller and smaller as Hogwarts Castle came clearer into view among the rain splashing heavily onto them and falling off as if they were plastic.  
  
"Slytherin," said Harry and Ron together.  
  
"Just send him to Slytherin straight away," Ron added. "Don't even bother sorting him."  
  
"D'you really think so?"  
  
"Hermione, the kid's a menace," said Ron matter-of-factly. "If there was a house even meaner than Slytherin, he'd be in that one."  
  
"He was looking at a test paper one of his teacher gave back to him and changed the grade from one to one-hundred without even knowing how he did it," Harry told them. Ginny, Ron and Hermione bursted out laughing. "They shouldn't even bother placing the hat on his head, just stick him in Slytherin."  
  
"Ha ha," said Ron, "yeah."  
  
Harry had a sudden thought.  
  
"Hey, Raides," he thought aloud, grinning, "can you tell us what the Sorting Hat is saying while it's on his head?"  
  
Raides screwed her face up in thought, turning her head towards the lake.  
  
"Can I tell you what the Sorting Hat is saying while it's on his head," she mumbled quietly to herself. She thought for a moment, turned to Harry, and said simply, "Yeah, it's just Foresight."  
  
"Foresight?" said Ginny blankly.  
  
Foresight was an ability from the ancients. One could peer into another's mind and share their consciousness, even talk to them in their head. Ron explained this to his sister.  
  
"Should we?" asked Hermione, sounding slightly unwilling. "I mean, what if it messes up the hat..."  
  
"Messes up the hat?" Ron squealed, looking at Hermione funny-like. "How can it mess up the hat? Oh come on, I want to know what it's thinking when" -- and he turned to Harry, still grinning --"dealing with someone so stupid!"  
  
Harry snorted along with Ginny.  
  
"Oh fine," said Hermione at last. "I can't see what it can do."  
  
"Either that or you just want to know, too," said Ron, yet still grinning.  
  
A crack of thunder made Ginny jump as the hundred horseless carriages made their way up the muddy trail to the castle. When they arrived, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were the only ones that were dry. A few second years scowled at Harry but backed away when Raides growled jokingly at them. Most people, except very few seventh years, were deathly afraid of her in staff form or lion form and so Harry didn't bother and let her stay as the great lion.  
  
Professor McGonagall greeted everyone as they stepped into the entrance hall and stopped speaking very abruptly, looking uncertainly after the massive seven foot lion prowling the castle.  
  
"That's the Staff of Cybele, Professor," Hermione explained. "It can transform into a lion."  
  
"I see," said Professor McGonagall weakly.  
  
"Ah, Professor McGonagall," said Raides warmly. "Harry has told me so much about you!"  
  
Raides held up her front right paw for Professor McGonagall to shake. Ignoring Ginny's, Harry's and Ron's sniggers, Professor McGonagall shook Raides' paw firmly once and let go, mumbling, "Nice to meet you."  
  
More and more students passed by them, entering the Great Hall.  
  
Just before Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Raides entered the Great Hall, the school poltergeist, Peeves, came bobbing merrily towards them, wearing a cheerful bow tie and looking very mischevious. Right away however, everyone who knew how devious Peeves was was happy to see he stopped dead and goggled at Raides as soon as he caught sight of her.  
  
"I don't like poltergeists," she said loudly.  
  
She didn't need to do anymore than give Peeves a menacing look to make him shoot straight through the nearest wall and out of sight. It would appear the Bloody Baron, Slytherin House's ghost (seen to float around, colored in silver blood stains) and Dumbledore, weren't the only ones who could control Peeves anymore.  
  
Ron gave Raides a look of utter amazement while many other people who saw what just happened clapped.  
  
"That was great!" he said joyously.  
  
After that, a few people weren't so scared of Raides anymore though Harry didn't think they would try and pet her any time soon.  
  
Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Raides stepped into the Great Hall, found the other Gryffindor seventh years and took a seat next to them. Raides jumped up on the bench and sat between Harry and Ginny and Ginny proceeded to pet Raides' soft golden fur.  
  
"I don't bite," said Raides, noting Ginny's hesitation, "usually..." she added after a moment, making Ginny pull her hand away.  
  
"Oh stop," said Hermione, glaring at Raides. "She doesn't bite," she told Ginny.  
  
"Forget you two, where are the first years!" Ron said.  
  
"Drowning," said Harry. "You remember three years ago when it rained just as bad as this?"  
  
"Yeah," said Ron. "That was the year Colin brought his brother Dennis to aid in his torture of following you around like an annoying shadow."  
  
Harry remembered a year after that he was involved in the accidental death of Colin Creevey. The thought still made his insides turn; Voldemort had been trying to control him.  
  
"Don't remind me," said Harry, looking at the doors of the Great Hall and waiting impatiently for the first years to arrive.  
  
"Look," said Ron, poking Harry, Hermione and Ginny, "up at the staff table. The new Potions professor, is that her?"  
  
"Mrs. Figg!" exclaimed Harry as he turned to look, saw her, and jumped.  
  
"You know her?" Ginny asked.  
  
"You two met her once," Harry said to Ron and Hermione. "Two years ago in the Three Broomsticks? She lives a few blocks from my house. Never knew she was a witch until then."  
  
"How could you forget already?" Hermione said, looking at the side of Ron's head. "The end of last term? Remember?"  
  
At the end of the last term, Dumbledore said Mrs. Figg would be taking up the job of Potions. Ron's face contorted into a silent expression of realization, a silent "oh!" escaping his mouth.  
  
Before Hermione had time to form another word, the doors to the Great Hall burst open, the massive form of Hagrid in the lead, holding up a fat bundle of robes -- soaked so badly it looked like thin paper -- in his hands that looked slightly familiar to Harry.  
  
"Dudley!" he shouted. "What d'you think happened to him?"  
  
"Probably fell in the lake," Ron suggested. "And the giant squid got to him."  
  
Hermione pointed out a slop of purple stuff in Dudley's hair where the giant squid probably slapped him.  
  
"Dennis fell in the lake and the giant squid just put him back in the boat," said Ginny uncertainly, watching Hagrid heave Dudley onto his feet. "Why'd it attack Harry's cousin?"  
  
"Who knows," said Ron, shrugging, "who cares... C'mon hurry up, get up the front already. I'm starving!"  
  
"That's all you ever think about, Ron," said Hermione sternly.  
  
"No, Hermione," said Harry, starting to grin, "that's all DUDLEY thinks about."  
  
Their conversation was interrupted as a series of hushes broke out across the Great Hall. The group of scared-looking first years followed Hagrid up to the front of the Great Hall, up towards the staff table. Professor McGonagall came striding into the Great Hall, holding the Sorting Hat's stool and the hat itself. Up towards the staff table she walked, greeting students as she made her way.  
  
She reached the back of the Great Hall and then placed the stool down just before the first years, who were lined up along the staff table. She nodded to Professor Dumbledore, who was sitting in the center of the staff table in the grandest chair, wearing robes of sky blue, looking proudly at all the new students. Professor McGonagall then placed the Sorting Hat onto it's stool. It was a patched and frayed and extremely dirty hat, looking like it had been through the mill, barely washed and then sent back there for some more.  
  
There was complete silence for a few moments. Dudley, who had been uncovered when Hagrid left the first years so they could go up to staff table, was now watching the Sorting Hat, not knowing what to expect. Looking generally scared, he jumped as he watched the brim of the Sorting Hat start to open up and break into song.  
  
Several centuries since their day past,  
The great founders of Hogwarts,  
Their goals succeeded, they do rest.  
They knew that their efforts,  
Through the test of time would last,  
And decided amongst themselves,  
In me their knowledge shall be blessed.  
Courageous Gryffindor,  
The House of the brave,  
For he chose his pupils to be pure of heart,  
And these were the ones with which he would not like to part.  
Loyal Hufflepuff,  
The House of the just,  
For she chose pupils who put heart into their work,  
And these were the ones she thought would know not to lurk.  
Clever Ravenclaw,  
The House of the learned,  
For she chose pupils who knew to use their mind,  
And these were the ones with whom she wished to bind.  
Cunning Slytherin,  
the House of friends,  
For he chose pupils who were full of ambition.  
And these were the ones he thought had best admission.  
Lots have put me on to see what I say,  
Ever since the Hogwarts Fours' day.  
Many have put me on to just take a look,  
I can read your head like a book.  
So put me on and come along,  
I'll look to see in just which House you belong.  
  
The entire Great Hall burst into applause as the hat finished it's song. It bowed to each of the four tables then sat very still on it's stool.  
  
Professor McGonagall pulled out the roll of parchment carrying all of the first years' names that Harry knew oh-so-well.  
  
"When I call your names," she said, "you'll come up, put the hat on your head and then sit on the stool to be sorted. Abbey, Thomas!"  
  
A sandy blonde boy with a squashed nose and looking more scared than Harry could remember himself during his sorting stepped out of the crowd, crammed the hat on his head and sat down. A few moments later, the hat shouted, "SLYTHERIN!"  
  
"Poor kid," said Hermione. "Putting him in Slytherin? He looked awfully scared."  
  
"Who cares!" exclaimed Ron. "Those cauldron cakes won't sustain me. Harry, your cousin ate most of them!"  
  
"That's Dudley for you," said Harry, looking up at Dudley and staring at the back of his fat head.  
  
He couldn't help but remember back at his own sorting when the Sorting Hat whispered in his ear... and when it suggested that Harry go in Slytherin, he asked it not to put him there.   
  
Dudley was giving the hat strange looks as it sorted people, the rest of the As, Bs and as it reached the end of the Cs, Dudley's face turned a purple remarkably remniscient of the color his dad's face takes up when he gets really upset.  
  
Professor McGonagall called "Cadence, Rebecca!" sending a plump, happy little girl, full of smiles up to the front. The hat shouted "HUFFLEPUFF!" before she even had the hat fully on her head and the same went for "Corrine, Corey!"  
  
Ron continued to complain down the end of the C names and didn't care that, out of all the new names, "Cuthbert, Cyan!" was the first "GRYFFINDOR!" However, the hat seemed to be having a bad night and took a full good minute and a half to send "Cyrilla, Sarah!" to "SLYTHERIN!" Perhaps Sarah was fighting with the hat just like Harry had? he thought to himself.  
  
"Deirdre, Danielle!" waddled to the front, looking too much like a female version of Dudley for Harry to look any more. When the hat happily sent her to "GRYFFINDOR!" the sparkle in his eyes about seeing people get sorted that had been there since the start of the sorting turned so dull he might as well have replaced his eyes with cardboard.  
  
Finally, "Dursley," said Professor McGonagall but she stopped to read over the name once or twice to herself to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her. "Dursley, Dudley!"  
  
"This is it!" hissed Harry. "Raides!"  
  
She quickly turned into a staff and Harry grabbed her. Then he focused his thoughts on Dudley as this was how Foresight worked, by simply just trying to focus on another mind. His eyes closed and he felt like he was leaving his body, rushing over to Dudley's.  
  
"Calm yourself," Harry heard a voice in his head say. "All right. You're not staying with these weirdos too long and you're going to get to eat more soon."  
  
Dudley stepped out from between two brunettes and waddled his way toward Professor McGonagall where she handed him the Sorting Hat. He jammed it on his head, visibly shaking, and sat down.  
  
"Hmm," said a tiny voice slowly in Dudley's head -- and Harry heard it too -- "had quite a decision just a few short years ago."  
  
Harry began to whisper what he was hearing to Ron, Hermione and Raides.  
  
"There seems to be something untapped, like a bit of you here now that wasn't there before... Ah, yes, I can see many qualities..." the hat went on, "but inbetween the apparent lack of talent and, well... I see a different mind... a Muggle mind..."  
  
"It thinks he's a Muggle?" said Hermione under her breath.  
  
"Shh!" said Ron, pressing a finger to his lips.  
  
"Ouch!" exclaimed Harry, thankfully not feeling himself jolted back to his own body but there was a tingly feeling in the hand holding Raides. He dropped her and hoped Dudley wasn't freaked out.  
  
"Many qualities that will do for Slytherin, no doubt," Harry heard the hat go on, "and you just may well belong there. Cunning, wit, self-preservation, self-centeredness and, I daresay, you are the meanest cousin I have ever had the displeasure of sorting..."  
  
Several yawns and stretching of stiff legs and arms fanned out across the Great Hall.  
  
"All these findings," said the hat slowly and excitedly, "but where to put you? Slytherin, for where you would be the most comfortable? Hufflepuff, where you may learn the value of actually working? Ravenclaw, where you might learn to use your head (because you've certainly never used it before)? Or, perhaps Gryffindor, to patch up that mess with your cousin?"  
  
"No," Harry thought to himself immediately, "not Gryffindor..."  
  
"Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Gryffindor..." the hat said slowly. "This is quite the tough one, topped only by your cousin's! Well... I might as well honor his decision as he asked to not be placed in Slytherin..."  
  
"Oh, no," said Ron just as Harry thought the same thing, coupled with Hermione's let-down face... That only meant that the hat would shout --  
  
"GRYFFINDOR!"  
  
"You don't think it was talking about Harry when it said that bit about 'a bit of you being there that wasn't there before,' do you?" asked Ron, thinking, unfortunately, rather along the same lines as Harry and Hermione.  
  
"Perhaps it would have just been better to ask him what the hat said to him?" Hermione suggested.  
  
"Are you kidding?" snapped Harry. "He forgets what he did an hour ago if you give him food!"  
  
Raides transformed into the great lion and settled herself between Harry and Ginny.  
  
The four of them watched sourly as Dudley waddled his way towards the Gryffindor table and, like a magnet, sat down across from Danielle Deirdre. She screwed her face up in disgust, muttered something that sounded like "fat" to him and, shoulders hunched, he made his way towards Harry, Ron and Hermione.  
  
"Rather self-contradicting of her to call Dudley fat, isn't it?" Hermione asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.  
  
"My aunt and uncle tried to pass Dudley off as a big-boned, sensitive boy that just needs to watch what he eats. Then one day the school he went to, Smeltings, sent home a letter saying they no longer stock uniforms big enough for him," Harry explained, grinning. "That's why he went on a diet that summer."  
  
"And it didn't work, did it?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
Dudley said something that had the effect of sounding a lot like "hello" as he came closer to Harry and took a seat on the bench next to him. Harry particularly didn't want to now have Dudley as an annoying shadow. He only half listened as the remaining students got sorted, including a pair of siblings named Justin and Christabell Florence.  
  
"Food!" exclaimed Ron when the golden plates and shining goblets in front of them suddenly filled with everything from chicken to waffles. Dudley nearly fell backwards when this happened.  
  
"Get used to it," said Harry at once, "because every time you eat in here that's gonna happen. And the plates refill themselves when they're empty."  
  
"Right underneath here," Hermione informed Dudley, "is one hundred something house elves that prepare the food and four tables exactly like this. It gets sent up through the floor."  
  
She probably shouldn't have said that because Dudley almost choked on his food.  
  
"Honestly, if you don't want to be here," said Harry, shaking his head, "they can send you home tomorrow."  
  
Dudley shook his head, not saying a word. It would appear he would need some time to find use of his voice again.  
  
Harry looked straight at Ron and said, "Just wait until he sees the rest of the ghosts. He'll freak."  
  
"And the moving pictures," Ron said, "and all the hidden doors... and passageways and the Fat Lady!" Ron added, turning to Dudley with a great big smile. "This is going to be such fun!"  
  
"Show him some respect, Ron," said Hermione, sounding terrifyingly remniscient of Professor McGonagall. Every time she gave someone those eyes, she just got better and better at it.  
  
"Why?" whined Ron. "He doesn't give any to Harry."  
  
Harry silently agreed.  
  
And again, Hermione looked for something to tell Ron off about but this time struggled over words such as "chance," "second," and a comparison to rabid werewolves and kitty cats that, while sounding intelligent, didn't make any sense even to Hermione.  
  
After everyone had eaten as much as they could and all the plates had become clean as ever, Dumbledore once again rose from his chair and beamed out at everyone.  
  
"Before I begin," he said, wearing his warmest smile, "I'd just like to introduce a guest among our number. You have probably seen her already, accompanied a Gryffindor seventh year."  
  
Harry, Ron and Hermione all immediately looked at Raides and Harry felt distinctly hot in the face. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that by Dumbledore simply saying a "Gryffindor seventh year," everyone knew who he was referring to.  
  
"That large lion," Dumbledore continued, "is known as the Staff of Cybele. For a little reminder, this was a staff lost for thousands of years only to be found just last year as I'm sure all but our first years remember." Harry felt himself go red. "The name given to her before her disappearance thousands of years ago is Raides and I'm sure she'd appreciate it if you call her by that name. I couldn't help but notice many of you exchanging nervous glances with her. As intimidating as she looks, dear Raides is not going to hurt anyone unless that someone happens to be Lord Voldemort."  
  
Whispers rippled across the Great Hall, as did many winces from students not keen on hearing the name. Raides jumped up on the Gryffindor table and stood at her full height, grinning wildly at all the faces staring at her.  
  
"This is the sole reason she is here," Dumbledore continued. "Being an immensely powerful staff, and, of course, only useable by an ancient, goodness knows that Voldemort and his Death Eaters would not attempt entrance into the castle. Let me calm your nerves by saying that you have nothing to fear with Raides on the grounds. I'm sure we will be seeing many examples of her grandness of power in the coming months," said Dumbledore, beaming at Harry. "As many of you probably know already, the Triwizard Tournament is to take place at Hogwarts once again this year."  
  
The effect of this simple sentence was astounding. Every single person forgot about Lord Voldemort and every face, every single one, except Dudley, was staring at Dumbledore with rapt attention.  
  
"Forgive me while I inform those of us who do not know and allow your minds to wander freely for a few moments.  
  
"The Triwizard Tournament was established hundreds of years ago among the best wizarding schools of Britian to attempt to establish ties among students of foreign schools. It was a success, of course. One champion from each school competed against the two other schools to bring the glory of the Triwizard Cup to their own school in three magical tasks. Every five years the tournament was held at each of the schools -- until unfortunate death after unfortunate death put the tournament to shame and it was canceled indefinitely."  
  
As last time, there was a scowling from Hermione but her sentiments were not shared by most of the students.  
  
"There has been many an attempt at resurrecting this tournament in the past years, the most successful one taking place three years ago at Hogwarts where, ignoring some very unfortuate circumstances in the end that were out of our control, it was a success."  
  
The ending was unfortunate all right, Harry thought. Someone had died and Voldemort had returned to power for the first time in thirteen years.  
  
"But, our goal had been successful," Dumbledore went on, "and no one found themself in a life-threatening situation if it could be helped. For further information on this subject, please refer to your fellow students as I do not wish to discuss this part of the last tournament's events any further.  
  
"As far as selecting students most worthy to become champions, to hold the glory for their school and having a chance at winning a thousand galleons of prize money, that will be determined by an impartial judge to be introduced when the date comes closer. The other schools, Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and Durmstrang Institute, will be sending their headmasters along with their list of selected students who wish to become champions in October and will be staying with us for the majority of the year. Please note that no student under the age of seventeen will be allowed to enter their name and I beg you not to ask until -- again -- the date comes closer."  
  
Many students, particularly those of fifth and sixth year, could be seen scowling at Dumbledore.  
  
"And now, it is getting late and it is of the utmost importance that you get to your first lessons tomorrow morning well rested. Bedtime!"  
  
At this, Dumbledore, sat back down in his chair and immediately entered conversation with Professor McGonagall, occasionally peering over at Harry.  
  
"Wonder who's goign to enter this year," said Hermione, "given the last tournament's rotten outcome and everything..."  
  
"Sure, just remind everyone of why they almost didn't bother this year," said Ron.  
  
"Almost didn't bother?" asked Harry.  
  
"Yeah. Dad said Fudge almost didn't approve of it. Someone needs to hurt him, honestly. Cornelius Fudge, dumb Minister of Magic. Dad's coming up with more and more bad things to say about him every day."  
  
"I'm certainly not competing," said Harry.  
  
"C'mon, Harry," said Ron pleadingly, turning to him, his eyes wide, "you have to enter! You just know if you do your name's going to pop out. Look, even Dumbledore knows it!" he added, nodding his head in Dumbledore's direction who was still glancing over at Harry every once in a while.  
  
Harry stared crossly at him and rose from the bench.  
  
"He doesn't have to compete if he doesn't want to and if you ask me, he doesn't want to," said Hermione sharply, rising from her seat too. "GRYFFINDOR FIRST YEARS!" she then bellowed, "FOLLOW ME!" Being a prefect and Head Girl, it was Hermione's job to see the first years to Gryffindor Tower. Among them, Dudley.  
  
A group of about five boys and four girls came over, all of them staring at Raides, then at Harry, then Raides, then Harry... This pattern continued out into the entrance hall, all the way up the marble staircase, up to Gryffindor Tower, when Hermione gave the Fat Lady, a living portrait of a fat lady in a pink, silk dress, the password ("Flamel") and into the common room (where Dudley oohed and ahhed the most at the squashy armchairs and blazing, warming fire).  
  
Hermione parted with Harry, Ron and Dudley at the spiral staircase to the girls' dormitory and then Ron left Harry to show Dudley to the first years' dormitory. Coming back down with Raides, Harry sat heavily upon his four-poster, staring dreamy-eyed around the circular room atop Gryffindor Tower.  
  
"I hope we have a quiet year this time around," said Ron, fixing his messed up bed sheets and muttering "Dobby," darkly under his breath.  
  
Dobby was one of the house-elves that worked at Hogwarts, a rather different egg when compared to all the others. While most elves satisfied themselves with serving one family forever, Dobby had served the very evil Malfoy family and had taken strangely to freedom when Harry tricked Lucius Malfoy into freeing Dobby. House-elves are freed from their enslavement of a family when they are presented with proper clothing (which means they are usually not properly clothed).  
  
"D'you really think so?" said Seamus Finnigan darkly, a sandy-haired fellow Gryffindor seventh-year. "You two and Hermione haven't had a quiet year since you arrived --"  
  
"Hey, it's either this or the Dursleys," said Harry firmly, "and I choose this."  
  
"If I were you," said Neville Longbottom, "I'd go straight home," before getting into bed himself and dozing off.  
  
Neville, Harry remined himself after almost considering the thought, found the simplest things scary.  
  
"Yeah," said Dean Thomas, the last Gryffindor seventh year in their dormitory. "I would just go home, too."  
  
And then a minute later, Harry heard his snores echo along with Ron, Neville and Seamus'.  
  
Watching Raides curl up on a rug on the floor, the reason Harry stayed to came him. Harry puffed up his pillows, layed down on them and stared at the canopy of his four-poster without even taking off his glasses. He wouldn't trade this for the Dursleys if his life depended on it -- and it usually did.  
  
"You don't know what it's like here," Harry found himself saying to Dobby in the summer before his second year at Hogwarts. Dobby insisted that Harry stay home, saying that Hogwarts was going to be the host of terrible things. "I don't belong here," Harry went on, "I belong in your world -- at Hogwarts."  
  
The Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts, a secret area built by Salazar Slytherin himself, home to a basilisk, had been opened in the school year that followed. It was the basilisk's job to be commanded by the heir of Slytherin to clear Hogwarts of all Muggle-borns... Voldemort had kept his sixteen-year-old self alive, preserved in a diary for fifty years. Lucius Malfoy had slipped this diary among Ginny's things during an argument at a bookstore. Ginny had been possessed, almost completely taken over, by the spirit of Voldemort. Harry had been forced to kill the basilisk to save his own life and destroy the diary, saving Ginny's life as well.  
  
Having sat up and grasped the Order of Merlin plaque once again, staring down at his name on it, the truth was so obvious it hurt. There was no home to Harry except Hogwarts.  
  
He placed the necklace down on his bedside table, removed his glasses, took off his Phoenix Bracelet and golden wristwatch and found himself fast asleep before he had a chance to change into pajamas. 


	14. Ask Hagrid

Chapter 14: ASK HAGRID  
  
Dudley didn't leave Harry alone at all on Monday, the first day of classes. He changed, crawled out of the first years' dormitory and somehow found his way into Harry's before Harry himself even had a chance to wake up.  
  
"Help me get to the Great Hall?" he asked, not sounding at all like he was giving it any effort. "I'm never going to remember all the hidden passageways, hidden walls and all that other stuff!" he screeched, waking up Neville with a start.  
  
"If you wake me up again tomorrow I'm going to turn you into a female toad and stick you with Prince," said Harry groggily. "And don't think I can't," he added, watching Dudley start to smile.  
  
As Dudley cringed, Raides crawled out from under Harry's bed and stretched her tail and then made strange faces while she stretched her legs.  
  
"It's not very comfortable under there," she yawned, "but Neville kept waking up and looking at me... I think he was glad to finally wake up for the last time and get to breakfast. Go on, Neville..."  
  
"C'mon, Harry," squealed Dudley, "I'm hungry!"  
  
"Oh shut up," growled Raides, starting to walk down the spiral staircase.  
  
"Wait, Raides!" Ron called after her. "You're going to scare everyone. Just wait for us."  
  
"Fine..."  
  
"Not a morning lion, is she?" Ron whispered to Harry.  
  
Dudley took a seat on Neville's empty bed and waited impatiently while Harry and Ron changed into their school robes. When they were finished and Harry waved him over to the spiral staircase, for the first time since arriving, Dudley almost looked happy.  
  
Walking to the Great Hall, most students steered clear of Raides but some of them were particularly brave, mostly Gryffindor students, and said hello to her. Raides didn't mind the attention. Rather, she was happy of it. Being asleep for a few thousand years does tend to make one miss life, Harry supposed.  
  
While Raides was quietly sipping a bowl of milk and munching on a big plate of meat provided most likely by Hagrid, Professor McGonagall came around with course schedules. Ron looked at his and groaned.  
  
"Divination first!"  
  
Harry rolled his eyes.  
  
"Great," he said, annoyed. "Just what I need. Professor Trelawney telling me on my first day how I'm going to die this year."  
  
Dudley stared.  
  
"How you're what?"  
  
"Divination is all about predicting the future," Hermione explained after she put down her goblet. "Professor Sibyll Trelawney, the Divination teacher, is a skinny old fraud. Just about every class she tells Harry that he's going to die. I dropped that class because I just couldn't stand it. Harry," she said, turning to him, "don't tell me what it is this year. I have half a mind to send Raides up there to eat her --"  
  
"I don't eat humans," Raides said at once, grinning at Dudley, who recoiled in his seat, "skin isn't right. Too thin. I prefer trolls myself. You people so need to lighten up," she added irritably, noting a few stares from the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables.  
  
"You should probably go and stay with Hagrid while I'm at class," Harry told Raides, munching on toast. "I don't particularly think my professors, well..."  
  
"But I want to go with Dudley!" said Raides sarcastically, budging her scarlet tail up against Dudley's shaking arm.  
  
Dudley, staring uncertainly at the seven foot lion next to him, made an indistinct noise in the back of his throat, much like Neville had been known to do.  
  
When Harry and Ron dragged Dudley to History of Magic (a fitting first subject for him) with Professor Binns, the only ghost teacher at Hogwarts and ran to North Tower, dropping Hermione off at Arithmancy and ignoring the portait of a very strange knight, Sir Cadogan, telling them that Professor Trelawney was in a particularly bad mood, they were late.  
  
"Fifteen minutes late," said the bulbous-eyed-through-her-spectacles, insect-skinny Professor Trelawney in her mistiest, most annoying voice yet. She was looking quite mean. Perhaps she had had a bad morning?  
  
"Please, professor," started Harry, "I had to drop my cousin off at Professor Binn's class --"  
  
"Ah, that would be Dudley Dursley, wouldn't it?" said Professor Trelawney more kindly though still sounding rather irked.  
  
"Yes," replied Harry.  
  
Ron, having stopped dead climbing the ladder that leads into the classroom at Professor Trelawney's voice, now climbed in and sat on a pouf near the window, as far away from her as possible. This was not a normal classroom. There weren't even desks, just round tables with the odd piece of furniture hanging about.  
  
"I should then tell you, my dear, why I'm feeling as such." Harry looked at her as if she was mad and Professor Trelawney, so thick that she mistook it for a look of question, said, "This year, Potter, will be your best yet... and your worst yet..."  
  
"Really," said Harry, completely unfascinated.  
  
"While it will become to much to bear at some point," she went on, capturing the complete attention of Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, her two biggest -- and only -- fans, "after some later point, you will not have to experience any more until after an even later point in time when it will become far worse before it all ends, changing your life completely."  
  
"Really," Harry repeated, still completely unfascinated.  
  
"You should not look at this so lightly, my dear," said Professor Trelawney, peering at him from over the top of her spectacles, unnaturally engorging her eyes even more.  
  
"Yeah," said Harry, turning towards Ron and sitting on a pouf next to him, "and I'll be framed for killing Professor Dumbledore."  
  
She stared even more at him after this remark.  
  
He opened up a window, letting the air blow onto his face. Harry always felt Professor Trelawney was mad for keeping the fire in her classroom burning even during the months of May and June... especially June. She said it was for the clairvoyance. Harry said it was for making him fall asleep. Ron just had no opinion. They were both sure that Hermione would say it helped keep Professor Trelawney insane.  
  
"This year, my dears, we will consider the clouds, rune stones, haruspicy -- which I shall explain at a later date -- and incense. We may dabble in other forms of Divination if time permits."  
  
"I hope time doesn't permit," Ron whispered to Harry. "I don't like the sound of haruspicy."  
  
Harry nodded in agreement.  
  
"We will start this year by looking to the clouds," said Professor Trelawney. "Please take out A Clear Future With Clouds by Claire Pordent?"  
  
Taking out his books, Ron's ears went pink.  
  
"Harry, I promise we'll pay you back," he said in an undertone.  
  
So did Harry's.  
  
"Don't worry about it, Ron," Harry told him. "Really."  
  
"I think dad's going to go for that promotion his boss said he was up for."  
  
"Why didn't he ever go for it before?"  
  
"I don't know. I guess he just likes it where he is."  
  
"Potter! Weasley! Will you pay attention!" barked Professor Trelawney, very out of touch with her usual airy self.  
  
"Sorry, professor," said Harry and Ron at the same time.  
  
"Two points from Gryffindor."  
  
Lavender and Parvati turned around to glare at Harry and Ron before looking back up at Professor Trelawney.  
  
Cloud Scrying, as Professor Trelawney called it, wasn't like anything they had ever done before -- it was a much bigger waste of time, Harry thought.  
  
"Please turn to page three of your text book for cloud interpretations," Professor Trelawney told the class, "and gaze outside this window."  
  
All the Gryffindor seventh years gathered around the two windows in the classroom and started looking for clouds. A wide and thin one caught Harry's eye.  
  
"This is so stupid," Ron said, staring blankly at one particular cloud that was gray among all the white ones. "Look, it's gray and the rest are white. That means I will be helping a friend in need."  
  
"You will, you know," said Harry, "because the one I'm staring at looks like a camel. Lets see, that means -- page four -- page five -- where is it, then -- oh, here... 'This sign represents finding your inner strength and having the endurance to overcome difficult times as you journey through life.' What a load of crap."  
  
"Wait, no," said Ron suddenly, "it's changing into a feather."  
  
"'Feathers represent the connection between heaven and earth,'" Harry droned while reading, "'Maybe the feather is telling you that the difficulties you face need to be looked at as being as light as a feather.'"  
  
"Ugh."  
  
"The one I'm looking at isn't moving," Neville muttered.  
  
"Oh, that just means you're going to get rained on," Dean told him.  
  
"I bet it rains only on Neville when we go out to Herbology later," said Seamus.  
  
"Oh leave him alone," snapped Parvati.  
  
"What? It's cloudy out... Why do you think Professor Trelawney wanted to start Cloud Scrying today?"  
  
Parvati sighed loudly at the back of Ron's head while he went to look for another cloud.  
  
"Look," he said, "that one looks like a feather, too."  
  
"No it doesn't," said Harry, "that's a leopard."  
  
"Courage, fearlessness and control," said a misty voice right behind Harry, making him jump. "Yes, my dears," said Professor Trelawney mysteriously.  
  
Neville hadn't gotten rained on the entire day and over the next few days, Harry had noticed something very strange: Dudley had made friends with a few Slytherins from his year, one particular one being fat and chubby that reminded Harry of Crabbe and Goyle, Draco Malfoy's heavyset bodyguards who were just as stupid as they were mean.  
  
"You don't really think we messed up the Sorting Hat, do you?" asked Hermione cautiously over breakfast one lazy Friday, two weeks into September. Dudley was now talking to Malfoy like they were best friends. This scared Harry. "What do you think, Raides?"  
  
Raides tore off the meat sticking out her mouth with her sharp claws and said, "No, of course not," very quickly and very not fooling anyone: she wasn't exactly sure either.  
  
"So then he should have been in Slytherin,," said Ron, glancing up at Harry and then Hermione before sticking his fork in his mouth.  
  
"Of course!" shouted Hermione, making a few heads turn in her direction. "I mean, look at him," she then said more quietly. "He's the only Gryffindor who has ever made friends with a Slytherin!"  
  
"You do realize, Hermione, that Dudley only needed to stay friendly with Harry long enough to meet other people. And then if he was really Slytherin, he would make friends with Harry's enemies and stop pretending to be friends."  
  
"But how could anyone be so mean!" said a very disgusted Hermione.  
  
"Hey," said Harry simply, holding a forkfull of eggs halfway between his plate and his mouth, "this is Dudley we're talking about," and then, without thinking twice about Dudley's actions, he stuffed it into his mouth and ate meaningfully.  
  
"He's right you know," said Raides, trying to take the blame off herself.  
  
"D'you think we should tell anyone?" said Hermione, "Like Professor Dumbledore?"  
  
"Are you mad?" said Ron hotly. "That would be great. 'Oh, Professor Dumbledore, I think we messed up the Sorting Hat when it went to sort Harry's cousin. Can you change him to Slytherin?' Just leave him. What can possibly go wrong? And besides, who cares. Dumbledore still hasn't said what Hogwarts is doing this year!"  
  
"Speaking of which, I overheard Professor Vector talking to Professor McGonagall about it when I went to report a few first year Slytherins for sneaking out at night."  
  
She had Ron hanging over her every word, his mouth hanging open. After a few seconds --  
  
"And?" he said eagerly, waving her on.  
  
Grinning, Hermione changed to a frown and added, "And I still have absolutely no idea what it is and Dumbledore isn't announcing it for a while. Professor McGonagall didn't exactly say when but she did say something about it being worth the one twenty galleons you'll have to pay..."  
  
That last bit of news seemed to darken Ron's mood and it was probably the reason Ron's parents didn't tell him any more than that something big was going to happen. Harry and Hermone silently agreed they shouldn't have said anything. It didn't look like Ron could ever afford to go.  
  
"Bloody hell!" Ron screeched. "Twenty galleons?" Harry knew he was upset because he'd never be able to go on account of not being able to afford twenty galleons... "Thank's Hermione. That's everything I wanted to know," he said angrily.  
  
"Come on," said Harry, "we'll be late for Double Potions."  
  
"What a crime that would be."  
  
"Feeling so very sarcastic this morning, aren't you?"  
  
"Don't know what you're talking about..."  
  
Harry, Ron and the rest of the Gryffindor seventh years and the Slytherin seventh years slowly leaked out of the Great Hall into the vast entrance hall and descended a stone staircase leading into the dark dungeons for Potions. Potions hadn't been so horrible now that Snape was no longer teaching and Professor Arabella was.  
  
"Today is a new type of potion," she was saying, "one you haven't made before. I must warn you to take extra caution. While there were cures for the other potions, this one can hurt quite a bit. Now, don't ask me why but the Ministry of Magic wishes Potions classes to cover exploding potions."  
  
Several faces lit up. Malfoy turned to Harry to give him his usual cold sneer.  
  
"I'd sooner teach plant-growth potions but strangely enough, you learn those in Herbology. I should probably also let you know that we're going to be working with some pretty grotesque ingredients in a very short time so for those of you with weak stomachs, prepare now," said Professor Arabella, grinning pointedly at Malfoy.  
  
She wrote up the ingredients on the blackboard, making sure to write BOIL FOR NO MORE THAN TWO MINUTES in nice, big letters, warning that the resulting potion would explode when someone tried to pour it in a bottle. They were only supposed to explode when said bottle breaks.  
  
"These are very, very weak forms of the ones that have any practical uses," she went on. "Such uses include taking down buildings and killing certain beasts that don't respond to magic. And mind you, it takes quite a bit of punch to hurt a dragon. Come on now, two at a cauldron. Miss Granger, please pair up with Longbottom."  
  
After fourty minutes, Malfoy, who thought he could make his a bit stronger by adding more brimstone, went paler than usual when he was met in the face with an explosion, singing his eyebrows, when he went to pour his and Crabbe's into a goblet.   
  
"Ten points from Slytherin, Mr. Malfoy," said the professor, performing a charm to restore Malfoy's face to it's former (horrible) glory.  
  
"Maybe Hagrid would tell us," Ron suggested later that night in the common room, late at night when everyone but them had cleared. Ron had been going on about Dumbledore's announcement for a long time. "I'm just dying to know. I mean, how much money does something have to be for Hogwarts to almost not be able to afford it?"  
  
"He's not going to," Hermione insisted.  
  
"Hermione, if I'm going to scrape up twenty galleons for something, I need to start as soon as possible," he said angrily, staring down Hermione who exchanged a nervous glance with Harry. "And I need to know if it's even worth it."  
  
Hermione looked at Harry, who shrugged.  
  
"All right," she said, giving in. "But you should let me go ask him. There's a bigger chance he'll tell me alone."  
  
"Can we come under the Invisibility Cloak?" Ron asked, knowing Hermione's answer was going to be --  
  
"No. Are you that impatient?"  
  
Rolling his eyes, Harry said, "What's the harm?"  
  
Hermione sighed and thought about it for few seconds. Harry could see the thinking gears going on in her head while she formed a conclusion, Ron waiting with bated breath. Harry couldn't see why Ron wanted to know so much but tried to sympathize. If for any reason Ron couldn't find twenty galleons (Harry doubted that he ever would), Harry would be more than happy to pay for him.  
  
"Fine, but if you make one sound he's going to know you're there and that I'm lying to him and then for that, so God help me I will have your neck. Got it?" Hermione said very quickly.  
  
Ron nodded.  
  
"So, when?" he asked.  
  
Hermione took a deep breath.  
  
"I'm supposed to go see him every Friday after dinner, so --"  
  
"Hermione," Ron said gruffly, "you kept telling us you were in the library and when we went to the library to look for you, you said that you were in the commons." Hermione's horribly guilty face smiled weakly. "What for?"  
  
"Professor McGonagall asked me to help him plan his lessons with third years and up. We'll go ask him next Friday."  
  
Ron was very impatient over the next week, not caring much when he almost blew his hand up with his exploding potion. The class was testing them during a Care of Magical Creatures class when Hagrid brought in salamanders.  
  
"Blimey Ron, if yeh value yer limbs," said Hagrid, a very serious look on his face, "don' throw yer goblet up in the air an' catch it. Yeh're lucky you an' Harry didn't make yer potion correctly."  
  
Hermione threw hers at a salamander, causing a great big explosion. The fire-loving lizard, on the other hand, didn't care. Neither did Ron. He was impatiently waiting for the Friday of that week and eventually, it did come.  
  
"Can we go now?" Ron asked for the hundredth time.  
  
"I'm not leaving while I'm still hungry, Ron. You can wait," Hermione told him again. "And besides, I have to wait for him to go back to his hut."  
  
"Go where?" asked Ginny as she came over, sneaking up behind Hermione.  
  
"Oh -- er -- nowhere," said Ron quickly.  
  
"If it's nowhere then how come you're in such a rush to get there?" Ginny said, now sitting down beside her brother.  
  
Ron looked at Hermione, giving her a very distressed looked. They couldn't talk about it with Ginny listening in.  
  
"It's nothing, Ginny. It's just that Ron wanted me to show him something," Hermioned lied. She grudingly stuffed the last bit of food from her plate into her mouth and looked up at Hagrid, who was still happily eating, engaged in conversation with Professor McGonagall. "We'll go soon, Ron," she said sharply. "Keep your shirt on."  
  
Ron stared at Hagrid without noticing it up until Hagrid left. He passed by Ron, asking him if there was any food on his beard ("I told you he noticed you staring at him," said Harry). When Ron said no, Hagrid gave him a weird look, nodded to Hermione and shuffled out of the Great Hall.  
  
Ron beamed at her and a minute later, Hermione was leading Harry and Ron, covered by the Invisibility Cloak down to Hagrid's ("If you two get stuck inside, I'm leaving you on your own!" Hermione hissed up in Harry's dormitory, speeding past Dudley). It was quite a small hut, made up entirely of wood, sitting next to the forbidden forest. There was, however, a large bed covered with a patchwork quilt and armchairs so large that Harry's feet dangled off the edge.  
  
Hermione knocked and Hagrid's boarhound, Fang, answered with barks and scrapings on the front door.  
  
"Down, Fang!" Hagrid ordered. "Yer food's tha' way! Hello, Hermione!"  
  
And before Hagrid had a chance to close the door, Ron dragged Harry in and they sat down in a corner, out of sniff of Fang, who was eating something happily in the opposite corner.  
  
"So --" started Hagrid...  
  
"Before we get started," Hermione cut in, "I just wanted to know, do you know what Hogwarts is doing that's supposed to be so secret?"  
  
Hagrid's smile immediately dissolved behind his tangled beard. "Er -- I'm not supposed ter tell yeh that, you know that. Nope, nothin' doin', Hermione. Maybe next -- er, well, let's get on with th' lesson, plans?"  
  
Ron cursed under his breath, causing Harry to hit his forearm to shut him up. Hermione swiveled her head around the room, knowing she couldn't see them if she wanted to anyway.  
  
And so Harry and Ron sat there, huddled in a corner, making no noise for a long time while Hagrid and Hermione talked about lesson plans concerning baby trolls, unicorns, puffskeins, baby dragons, flobberworms and becoming so stiff that if Harry even tried to move his leg, it wouldn't obey. Halfway through, Ron complained that his leg cramped up, making a very difficult situation when he had to stretch it out long enough to get rid of the cramps. And when Hagrid opened the door, Hermione stepped aside, letting Ron drag Harry back towards the castle. It was a complete waste of two hours.  
  
Back in the commons when everyone had left, Harry didn't think Ron would ever stop asking Hermione --  
  
"Why didn't you at least try to push him on it! C'mon Hermione!" he said desperately.  
  
"Look, Ron," said Harry firmly, turning to him, "if you can't afford -- yes I said the 'A' word -- I'll pay for the both of us."  
  
"No, Harry. You already paid for my books and we haven't even paid you back for that."  
  
"If it's as good as your parents are saying it is, don't you want to go?" Harry asked, wondering why outloud about "why wouldn't you want to go? Or d'you want to sit here and rot, missing out on a once in a lifetime opportunity?"  
  
"Fine," Ron muttered.  
  
"What's that? Didn't catch it," Harry said, grinning.  
  
"I said fine," said Ron loudly, spinning around and feeling uneasy about Harry paying for him -- again.  
  
"He just wants you to go," Hermione assured Ron.  
  
"Don't you get on my case now, too," Ron snapped.  
  
"Well I have homework to do, and so do you two," Hermione said matter-of-factly, turning on her heal and walking towards the spiral staircase.  
  
"What's her problem?" Ron said, looking uncertainly after her.  
  
"You know, I think she likes you," Harry said, staring uncertainly after Hermione as well, and then turning his eyes to look sideways at Ron.  
  
"What? Of course she does," said Ron at once, sitting on an armchair by the fire, "otherwise we wouldn't be friends."  
  
"No, no. I don't mean just like friends." Harry had the sudden feeling the feeling was mutual when Ron went as red as the phoenix feather quill Harry was holding. "She would never have lied in front of Hagrid. Why do you think she didn't push him on answering? She only went for you and then felt guilty when Hagrid said no. It's so obvious."  
  
Ron pulled a Hermione and stormed up the spiral staircase to the top of Gryffindor tower towards the seventh years dormitory. After a good minute of asking himself if he should have mentioned that, Harry went up, too.  
  
"Don't talk to him," said Raides as Harry entered. "I asked him why he was looking so sour and he told me it was because he ate a sour pill, coupled with a cup of sour milk and some spiders. Kid's not making any sense..."  
  
"He's becoming sarcastic in his old age," said Harry, laughing, putting down his jewelry on his bedside table, changing into pajamas and climbing into his four-poster.  
  
The thought of Ron and Hermione getting together forced a memory of Cho to Harry. It was Hermione's doing that got them together in the first place. If she hadn't practically forced him to spend a night in Hogsmeade with her... 


	15. The Theft

Chapter 15: THE THEFT  
  
If there was one thing that would make Ron forget about last night, it just didn't come. The Invisibility Cloak lay at the bottom of Harry's trunk. Not even magical means would get Hagrid to tell. All weekend, Ron had asked Harry if there was any way he could stop him from offering to loan him twenty galleons. Harry knew quite clearly that while Ron said this to him, he really didn't mean it and would be dearly upset if he couldn't participate in whatever it was that Hogwarts was doing. The only problem with this was that he seemed to be going through an internal struggle.  
  
They exchanged several ideas, ranging from trips to other countries and staying to learn about them to a school trip to a real international wizarding duel among top world contenders that Ron's dad had been hinting about by owl ever since Hagrid failed to tell Hermione; Ron had written home home about their failed attempt. Hogwarts had once held a tournament but it was among students and while some matches were longer than a few minutes, the only highlights were when Harry had been showing off the power of the Mark of Ancients.  
  
In fact, the entirety of Hogwarts was dreaming up ideas as well and every time someone asked Dumbledore when they passed him in the corridors, he simply drew an H and a P in the air with his wand. Parvati Patil suggested it was going to be something involving Harry and this had become the general consensus among the entire student body. What it was, on the other hand, was a complete mystery. Harry himself thought, or rather, hoped, that this was Dumbledore's way of just striking up interest.  
  
But in other affairs, Hedwig had gone missing from her cage and she wasn't in the owlery. This didn't bother anyone, as Hedwig had gone on trips for a few days. Even better, when Dumbledore had once mentioned that they would be revisiting elemental enchantments in Paladism, there was a general murmur of interest. He had also mentioned that they would be doing it outside. And that Raides would be involved. Harry distinctly remembered in his first year of taking Paladism sending a heavy, small stone block crashing up through each and every floor of the castle, up out to the top of the Hogwarts castle roof. He had had the Mark of Ancients at the time and didn't know his own strength...  
  
"I would not normally be able to do this," he told them as soon as the class had settled themselves into seats.  
  
Paladism was held in a class in the dungeons, a particularly large room when compared to the other dungeon classrooms, with stone walls, a stone floor and ceiling. Light was provided by means of candles lining the walls and there were no desks, only tables that lined three of four walls, leaving just enough room for people to enter from the thick, wooden door. The wall that didn't have a table was the wall at which the teacher's desk sat.  
  
Raides had followed Harry from the Great Hall up to his dormitory to collect his books and then down to the dungeons. She was now sitting in front of Harry, her golden head looking up curiously at Dumbledore, her several-foot-long scarlet tail resting upon the table in front of him, horribly spiting Neville. He was still slightly afraid of her. Everyone, including Raides, was very intent on hearing what Dumbledore could possibly want with the mind-bogglingly powerful Staff of Cybele.  
  
"But given the unexpected discovery of a certain very powerful magical artifact," Dumbledore continued gleefully, "I can show you elemental enchantments like they were meant to be done. I don't know how further we will be able to go, as beyond today's demonstration, there isn't much else. Harry, would you please attempt a Fire Charm on this sword with Raides?" he added, holding up the sword of Godric Gryffindor.  
  
This sword was quite familiar to Harry at this point, it was the very thing that helped him to kill the basilisk. Fairly long, encrusted with rubies along the handle and hilt, it had the name Godric Gryffindor written along the blade itself.  
  
Harry got up from his seat, walked around the table towards Dumbledore's desk just as Raides pushed her powerful legs against the floor to jump up several feet. She became engulfed in gray smoke and emerged as the seven foot long Staff of Cybele. Harry snatched her out of the air one handed (ignoring gasps from a few girls) before it hit the ground, scarlet crystal glittering in the candlelight. Just as his hand touched the staff, a glitter of golden sparkles ran the length of the staff, starting from the crystal to the tip of the scarlet tail. Harry never noticed this happening before but, knowing that Raides hadn't been a staff in a few weeks' time, he figured that that was probably just her letting off a little built up magic.  
  
Harry picked up the ruby-encrusted sword with his left hand and, holding the gigantic staff in his right, aimed the crystal as best he could at the sword and shouted, "Incanto usurponis incendium!"  
  
The crystal in the lion's mouth glowed white and let off a bang like a shotgun, sending a fiery red light (and more golden sparkles down the length of the staff) a short distance to the sword. And in his very hand, the blade of the sword itself became engulfed in red flames, stopping at the hilt so as to prevent his hand from getting scorched. But even stopping there, the heat from the flame made his hand hot.  
  
Harry stared, along with the rest of the class. They were taught for a long time that you didn't see the effect of an elemental enchantment and there they were, staring at a fire enchantment on a sword. In spite of their surprise, however, the sword looked magnificient engulfed in a red-hot flame. It crackled and spit ash and Harry hoped that it wasn't eating up the blade.  
  
"Like to see you fight that basilisk now, eh?" said Raides, giggling, the crystal having disappeared from her mouth. Harry's face turned pinkish.  
  
"Ah yes," said Dumbledore, beaming. "Legends told of the ancients doing such a thing with enchantments but I never would have believed it unless I saw it with my own eyes."  
  
Harry held the staff horizontally at his side and swung the sword up, the fire making a whooshing sound as he brought it quickly down through the air.  
  
Dumbledore attempted to remove the enchantment but it failed horribly, doing nothing but make the fire hiss and spit loudly when the feeble black light hit it. This also nearly burned Harry's hand. Dumbledore asked Harry to remove it -- and he did -- and then asked him to do it again with an ice enchantment. As soon as the icy-blue light connected with the blade, an icicle formed out of light blue smoke, covering the entire length of the blade. It was so cold that Harry felt his fingers sticking to the ice when he touched it. He repeated it once more with a lightning enchantment, causing tiny arcs of lightning to whip around the blade, causing cracks of thunder.  
  
Dumbledore really wanted to borrow Raides for his other classes but when he picked her up, a low steady growl came out of her mouth... He knew well Raides wouldn't let anyone but an ancient use her but curiosity got the best of him.  
  
When class ended, Raides followed Harry, Ron and Hermione up to Gryffindor tower to drop their books off and head to the Great Hall for dinner, skirting Dudley in the entrance hall. They wondered about what else Raides could do, knowing that Raides herself, having lost her memory, wouldn't particularly know. While eating, something horrible caught Harry's eye -- or rather, didn't.  
  
"Dudley," he said.  
  
"Dudley?" said Ron curiously. "What about him?"  
  
"I don't see him anywhere at the table. Any of you seen him?" asked Harry, glancing at the Gryffindor seventh years.  
  
"What d'you care about him?" Ron asked. "Better off without him. C'mon Harry. Hasn't all he ever done to you is be nasty and mean?"  
  
For a split second, Harry had to agree and yet... Dudley was family. Something at the bottom of his heart, a very small something that was more like an improperly performed Memory Charm, wanted to know where Dudley was. He almost felt a certain responsibility to know that Dudley was okay -- almost.  
  
"And it's no wonder you don't because he's sitting across from Malfoy at the Slytherin table," Ron added, pointing.  
  
And suddenly, that small something disappeared without a trace.  
  
"What?" screeched Harry and Hermione at the same time, peering over their shoulders.  
  
Sure enough, Dudley was sitting at the Slytherin table, keeping Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle great company.  
  
"I've seen him talking to them a lot lately," said Ginny, noticing where they were looking.  
  
"Yeah," said Neville. "I think the hat should have put him in Slytherin."  
  
"Wonder why it didn't," muttered a voice, Seamus Finnigan's voice, to Harry's left. "He's always wandering around the dungeons. Walking with Malfoy. I don't think I've ever seen him around Gryffindors."  
  
"Yeah," said Harry, feeling his insides churn horribly and turning to Ron and Hermione and glancing nervously at them, "wonder why..."  
  
Something kept eating him, the same something that had took it's first bite when the Sorting Hat shouted "Gryffindor!" while sitting upon Dudley's thick blonde head. By the look on Ron's and Hermione's face, it was eating at them, too. Did catching Foresight with Dudley while being sorted really make the hat see a bit of Harry in him? Harry had to go over this in his head time and time again and each time he decided on an answer, it was the same one: yes.  
  
"Too bad Professor Snape isn't here," said Hermione, to a flood of sharp eyes staring at her, "because then we would know that if Professor Snape liked him, then he really did belong in Slytherin," she finished quickly.  
  
Harry turned to stare at the back of Dudley's fat head and saw Malfoy waving at him. Malfoy got Dudley's attention, pointed to Harry and, quite suddenly, Dudley shot Harry a look of pure venom. While Harry knew Dudley to greatly despise him, he never knew Dudley to give him such a cold look.  
  
"What's he smirking at," Ron said, noticing.  
  
"Who's smirking at what?" Raides said, taking a quick break from wolfing down her dinner.  
  
Raides looked up and Ron and Harry pointed at Dudley, who quickly changed his face from venom to fright and looked away. She rolled her eyes and went back to chomping on the troll meat Hagrid had been providing. She preferred it greatly to the meatloaf and chicken Harry and Ron were eating. It was a lot thicker and tougher, a fact that made Harry sick every time she mentioned it.  
  
When the conversation was quickly changed to what Dumbledore's announcement would be ("So forget about Dudley," Hermione said. "What about that thing Dumbledore has been hinting at?"), Harry had a really crazy idea of taking Hermione's advice and asking Dumbledore to, er -- reassess -- the House that Dudley had been put in. He went over it once more while Ron and Hermione were talking to Seamus and Neville about -- other -- famous people they knew with the letters H and P in their name and then shared this idea with them when heading back to Gryffindor Tower.  
  
"Are you mad?" Ron asked again.  
  
"Possibly," said Harry. "But what if he really does belong in Slytherin? Will Gryffindor be the first to turn out a Dark wizard?"  
  
"Ha!" Ron exclaimed. "Dudley? A Dark wizard?" he said incredulously as they reached the top of the marble staircase in the entrance hall. "Have you overheard what the teachers have been saying about him? He gets into more trouble than Fred and George and his grades are like Neville's!"  
  
"Ron's right, Harry," said Hermione, trying to make herself believe it.  
  
For some reason, this didn't bother either of them as much as it bothered Harry and he couldn't quite explain it. Something was stinging him and he couldn't pinpoint it. They all watched as Dudley zoomed past them, this time looking in quite a hurry.  
  
"I overheard a few Gryffindor fourth years saying that he lost us fifty points for purposely casting a Levitation Charm on Professor Flitwick," Hermione went on. "And you know that that charm isn't supposed to move people but he was bad at it and Professor Flitwick fell right out of one of the windows. He nearly broke an arm."  
  
"He's another Neville!" said Ron, forgetting that Neville was walking behind him.  
  
Hermione, knowing that Neville was behind her and trying not to let on that she did, said, "Be nice to Neville. He's come along way. He hasn't been in one disaster yet so far."  
  
"Hermione," said Ron flatly, "we've only been in class for two weeks."  
  
Hermione shot Ron the look of pure venom that Dudley had given Harry and jerked her head back to show Ron that Neville was there. He stammered for a minute, trying to think of something to say and when Neville told him that he had been going to a summer wizarding school to prepare for the very hard magic that they would be using this year, Ron simply muttered that he was sorry.  
  
"Password?" asked the Fat Lady guarding the entrance to Gryffindor Tower.  
  
"Light of Faith," said Hermione. "I remember when you actually used that spell, Harry," she added, turning to him.  
  
"Don't remind me," said Harry.  
  
"It was a cool-looking spell though, Harry," said Ron, grinning.  
  
Rolling his eyes, Harry stepped in behind Hermione and said, "We need to finish that homework for Professor Trelawney. I doubt you've finished all five clouds she wants you to look at and write about."  
  
"Five what?" said Hermione curiously.  
  
"The old bag," Ron groaned. "We're doing Cloud Scrying. She wants us to look at five different clouds in the sky, write down what they look like and write a paragraph on what it means for our future."  
  
"Such boring work," Harry muttered, opening his bag on a table and pulling out his Divination homework. "So far I've got a camel and a leopard and it's due tomorrow. The first day of class I got two and then ever since, I haven't been able to match any cloud in the sky with one from the book... It's not helping that there haven't been many clouds in the sky lately. I think I'm just going to close my eyes and point my wand at random ones. Hey, she hasn't said anything to us making up our homework yet," he added, noting the thinning of Hermione's lips.  
  
"He's right," Ron agreed. "In fact, she's giving us top marks!"  
  
Her lips went thinner. Raides, laying by the fire, looked up at Harry and grinned.  
  
Hermione then looked around the common room, bent lower to Harry and Ron, lowered her voice and hissed, "Why don't you use your heads and go OUTSIDE to try and find a cloud in your book!"  
  
Ron shot a quizzical look at Harry. They nodded.  
  
"How about we do that now," said Harry.  
  
"Good then," said Hermione. "I have work to do for Runes."  
  
And she was gone.  
  
"What's eating her?"  
  
"Probably Dudley."  
  
"Yeah, well," said Harry quietly, "that's eating all three of us."  
  
Ron followed him up the spiral staircase to the top of the Tower. The first thing he noticed was that his trunk was open.  
  
"What's your trunk open for?" Ron said, staring at it.  
  
"Dunno. I thought I closed it," Harry said, walking over to it and kneeling down.  
  
"Me either but, you know, make sure you have everything... including the you-know-what," said Ron, referring to the Invisibility Cloak.  
  
Ron knew that, among all of Harry's things, the Invisibility Cloak (currently the only thing Harry had that he treasured that he wasn't wearing), the Phoenix Bracelet and the Order of Merlin necklace were the only things that would drive Harry mad if he happened to lose them. But as Harry rummaged through his trunk, it appeared that Ron's slight panic was not totally unfounded.  
  
Harry's rummaging grew faster and faster and while he knew that he had already checked the entire thing twice, he checked it a third time, just in case, before picking the entire thing up and frantically dumping it's contents onto the floor. Breathing heavily, he searched through every item on the floor one at a time.  
  
He picked up an old, normal cloak (aside from the fact that it had been bewitched with a Warmth Charm) that his dad once owned, took one look at it and then threw it onto his four-post bed, his panic rising.  
  
"It's not here," said Harry, his voice quivering.  
  
"What do you mean?" said Ron, his doing the same.  
  
"What d'you think I mean," said Harry angrily.  
  
"Well then find it!" Ron said in a high pitched voice.  
  
"WHAT D'YOU THINK IM TRYING TO DO!" Harry now yelled.  
  
Harry gave up looking in the trunk and Ron, trying to help, stuffed all of Harry's things back into it. Harry himself, disbelieving of the idea that someone would dare take his cloak -- let alone thinking of how someone could possibly know he had one -- looked under his bed. Then in his bedside cabinet. Then the bed and cabinet of Neville, Dean, Seamus and -- ignoring Ron yelling "Why the hell are you searching my stuff! I didn't take it!" -- Ron's.  
  
"WHERE -- IS IT!" Harry yelled, looking all around the circular room.  
  
"Where's what?" said Seamus curiously, coming up the spiral staircase. Harry turned quickly to look at him and didn't notice that his face was still contorted into something quite menacing. Backing up, Seamus said, "I -- it's -- just that we heard you yelling in the common room. I wanted to know what was going on."  
  
"Someone stole my Inv-" Harry started, trying to keep himself calm, but then, catching himself from saying "Invisibility Cloak" because he didn't want anyone else to know he had one, said quickly, "-- something important of mine." He wondered whether Seamus would ask what it was and asked himself what he would answer with...  
  
"Search me," said Seamus to Harry's relief. Seamus' eyebrows were raised in curiosity at Harry's behavior. "Didn't see anyone. I just got into Gryffindor Tower."  
  
Feeling beads of sweat on his hands, trying to fight his suspicion of just about everyone except Ron and Hermione and swiveling himself around the room once more, Harry said, "Well -- well could you ask them if they've seen anything?"  
  
"Sure," Seamus said, looking quite happy to go. "No problem." And he walked quickly back down the stairs.  
  
"Harry, calm yourself," said Ron.  
  
"Calm myself?" said Harry loudly and incredulously, dropping all pretense after Seamus had gone. "That's my dad's cloak and you want me to calm myself? Nevermind Voldemort, if my dad was alive and knew I'd lost it, he'd probably kill me!"  
  
Harry was forcefully reminded of the fact that he didn't truthfully know WHAT his dad would do. The simple idea that he didn't know what they would do in the event that he did something so hideous nagged at him, bit at him and stung him all over. It was this very, very unwelcome thought that made him even angrier at himself. Ron just didn't understand; Harry doubted whether he ever would.  
  
And so the real reason had come out. He had lost his dad's cloak and what was it to anyone about how cool it was to sneak about Hogwarts unseen? Who, beside Harry since that was all really mattered anyway, really cared about owning an unfathomably rare magical item? Like the other precious items, it was really only about having inherited something from the other You-Know-Who... What was it to Harry that he had owned -- and now lost -- his dad's Invisibility Cloak?  
  
Everything.  
  
Both he and Ron knew that only a Gryffindor could have possibly stolen it as no one else but Gryffindors and the professors were given the password. Surely -- surely Dumbledore hadn't confiscated it -- again? But he wouldn't. When he had done it last year, it was supposedly for Harry's own good and he had told Harry he was going to take it. Somehow, Harry didn't think that Dumbledore was behind this.  
  
Professor Trelawney's homework lay forgotten.  
  
"Well don't lose your head at least," Ron said desperately.  
  
"Don't lose my head," Harry muttered under his breath. "It's a bit late for that!" he shouted. "Don't lose my head..." he muttered again, staring at some space a few feet to the left of Ron.  
  
"L-let's ask Hermione," Ron suggested.  
  
"What good's asking her gonna do!" Harry shouted flatly at Ron. "She's in the library!"  
  
"Who could've taken it, then," said Ron, looking at Harry's trunk, starting to worry more about Harry than the cloak.  
  
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Harry said hotly. And then, after a few seconds thought, "I bet it was Dudley. I'm going to find him and wring his neck. He's the only other person that knows around here and he's probably told Malfoy," said Harry. "Let's go get Hermione."  
  
Ron hesitantly followed Harry down the spiral staircase.  
  
"Come, Raides," said Harry when he reached the common room, ignoring everyone staring at him. It wasn't exactly hard to figure out that everyone had heard him yelling. "We're going on a trip."  
  
"I heard you yelling and I thought someone had died," said Raides, grinning and then, seeing the look on Harry's face, she stopped grinning.  
  
"That just may happen. Now c'mon, I need to find Hermione."  
  
Raides and Ron reluctantly followed Harry out of the portrait hole and headed toward the library, Hermione's most likely hiding place. Neither of them liked the course of action Harry was taking but they both had different plans. Ron wanted to just throw hexes at Dudley until he gave it up. Raides' method was slightly different and involved Dudley yelling, too.  
  
Harry walked very quickly up and down stairs, across corridors and through tapestries until reaching the library where Hermione was easily visible. There were no less than three books spread out in front of her along with a large sheet of parchment, a quill and two bottles of ink. It looked like she planned on being there a while.  
  
"Hermione --" said Harry as he stepped in, trying yet again to keep his voice calm, yet having a hard time because he kept picturing Dudley and Malfoy either tearing the Invisiblity Cloak up or using it for themselves.  
  
Hermione put her quill down immediately, looking like she expected Harry and gave him McGonagall eyes. Ron sat down on the table.  
  
"A few first years came running in here, yelling something to me about you yelling so loud that they couldn't hear themself think," she said very seriously. "You'd have thought someone would have died but no, it was just you. What happened?"  
  
Checking that no one was trying to listen in, Harry sat down in front of Hermione, bent closer, lowered his voice and said, "Someone stole my Invisibility Cloak." Hermione's mouth fell open. "Exactly. I have a strong feeling Dudley did it. Why else would he have run past us in the corridors? Something tells me it wasn't to get a head start on his homework. That won't happen until Voldemort --"  
  
"Potter!" said a stern voice right behind Harry, making all four of them drop their slightly distressed looks (or in Harry's case, highly distressed) for one they hoped was neutral. Harry wheeled around to be facing the very thin lips of Professor McGonagall. "I daresay Miss Granger has told you what a few first years had said? Explain."  
  
"I was heading back to my dormitory to get some books and found my trunk open," said Harry, thinking fast. "I just checked to make sure I had everything and I found that I was missing my -- er --"  
  
"I'll handle it, Professor," Hermione cut in. "Don't worry. All under control."  
  
While this made Harry feel slightly better right now, he knew in the long run -- in the next five minutes -- it would wear off. Professor McGonagall looked behind Harry to Hermione, then at Ron, then at Raides who had taken up residence under Hermione's desk and back to Harry, examining the looks on all their faces to make sure the situation really was under control. It wasn't, but she fell for it anyway.  
  
"Very well, Miss Granger," she said, nodding to Hermione. Then she rounded on Harry, peering at him over the top of her square spectacles. "Potter, I want you to control yourself. You haven't had any trouble so far and I expect better as one gets older, not worse. I especially expect the best of seventh years. And besides, what would your father say?"  
  
That was supposed to make him feel better?  
  
"I don't know, I haven't spoken to him for more than fifteen minutes," said Harry coldly.  
  
Professor McGonagall, realizing she had said too much from the look on Harry's face, straightened her glasses nervously and walked out. Hermione immediately put her face back into the one she had before Professor McGonagall interrupted, as did Ron and Raides and very quickly turned to Harry again.  
  
"So what do you suppose we do, throw curses at him until he squeals?" Ron suggested before Harry or Hermione could speak.  
  
Both of them stared at him.  
  
"I had something else in mind," said Raides.  
  
"No, Raides," said Harry at once. "As much as I'd really like to hurt him, he's going to report it... and we'll all get detention," he added resentfully.  
  
"If he does have the thing with Malfoy," said Hermione, "then he's probably in the Slytherin common room and I don't have the password for the stone door."  
  
"If they do something to it, I'll kill them," Harry said angrily, just loud enough for Hermione, Ron and Raides to hear.  
  
"Calm down, Harry --"  
  
"I already tried that. He just gets less calm," Ron said in an undertone to Hermione so Harry couldn't hear, saying exactly what Harry was feeling.  
  
"W-wh-who's to say they don't have it?" Hermione asked, trying to sound comforting. Harry stared. "Okay then so they do have it. What are we supposed to do?" Harry continued staring. "How?" she said flatly. "How are we supposed to get it back? You'll have to tell Dumbledore."  
  
"Fine, then," said Harry.  
  
Just as Harry said this, Dumbledore appeared at the library entrance with perfect timing. He strode calmly over to four of them, looking at Ron sitting on the table.  
  
"Tables are for books and papers, Mr. Weasley," he said, eyes sparkling, "not for sitting."  
  
"Sorry, Professor..." said Ron, pulling a chair over and sitting on it  
  
Dumbledore then rounded on Harry, the sparkle slightly fading. "I have been informed, Harry, and I ask that you return to Gryffindor Tower."  
  
Harry now stared at Dumbledore, then blinked.  
  
"I AM getting it back, aren't I?" he asked sharply but he immediately felt he shouldn't have said it so forcefully. Dumbledore peered at him just as sharply over the top of his half-moon spectacles.  
  
"I ask that you return to Gryffindor Tower," Dumbledore repeated calmly, much to no one's surprise.  
  
And much to Harry's well-hidden annoyance, he, Ron and Raides left Hermione to finish her work and started to head back to Gryffindor Tower. At the entrance hall, Ron stopped but Harry kept going.  
  
"Aren't you coming outside with me to do the Divination homework?" Ron asked Harry.  
  
"No, you go," said Harry, still not stopping.  
  
"You can't copy all of that off me, I think she'll notice THAT," said Ron, not getting what Harry was really thinking and starting to follow him. After a few seconds silence, he then shouted, "WHAT? Oh, come on. Don't tell me you're that upset by Dudley and Malfoy stealing your dad's cloak that you won't do your homework."  
  
"Yep," said Harry. "That's right." It was Ron's turn to stare. "I can't believe Dudley would do something like this."  
  
"Can you -- really -- be that surprised, Harry?" Ron asked in a flat tone.  
  
Harry had to think about this for a bit. While he knew Dudley to be ill-natured and rotten, what exactly would possess him to do such a thing? And then it came to Harry. Perhaps it wasn't all so bad and that it was mostly in his head? No, he concluded very quickly, ignoring Ron's continued stare at the back of his head, it wasn't all in his head. Dudley had continually tortured Harry for ten straight years and then every summer (except the summer that Sirius had stayed at Privet Drive) and he was now trying to continue it at Hogwarts. With Malfoy's help. This angered Harry -- greatly.  
  
If anything, he had to show Dudley who the boss was. He wouldn't stand for it. He simply wouldn't. He voiced this to a very distressed-looking Ron.  
  
"All right, I see your point," Ron said. "But you better not do anything because I don't think you want to get on Dumbledore's bad side so quickly this year," he warned, "eh?"  
  
Harry stopped walking and Ron bumped into him. Harry turned around, dropping his facial expression of great anger and exchanging it for one of great resentment. He stared at the ground for a second then looked up at Ron with a "okay-fine-you're-right" look in his eye. Dumbledore never yelled at Harry whenever Harry had done something worth calling Dumbledore in for. He hated the disappointment in Dumbledore's voice, prefering he yell instead. Not feeling in the mood for hearing Dumbledore's voice sound so disappointed, he took Ron's advice but that still didn't mean that he was going to do his homework -- Dudley and Malfoy had drawn his mind completely blank as Ron saw Harry to Gryffindor Tower. Ron then went back outside to go cloud gazing. 


	16. A Letter From Sirius

Chapter 16: A LETTER FROM SIRIUS  
  
"My dear, you have only done two of the required five clouds," came Professor Trelawney's voice as Harry ascended the ladder to the lightly scented Divination classroom on Tuesday.  
  
Harry guessed that she might have predicted this but didn't expect her to bug him about it before he even sat down. Ron had gotten up first and Harry sat down at the same round table. His mind drifted off to Cho for a fleeting moment but was quickly brought down to Earth with an unpleasant thump as Professor Trelawney walked slowly over to him, peering at him like he had an explanation to give her other than the one he was certain that she already knew.  
  
"Yes," he said, unable to think of anything else, "I only did two."  
  
Harry pulled out his unfinished homework from his bag as everyone else pulled out their finished homework.  
  
"I foresaw this coming, my dear," said Professor Trelawney, giving Harry a tragic look, "and forgive me if I already took the one point from Gryffindor when I assigned this."  
  
"I was wondering why Gryffindor was one point higher before we went into Divination last than when we came out," Ron whispered quietly to Harry.  
  
Harry had come used to Professor Trelawney's famous tragic look as it was a look that she wore every time she looked at him. The entirety of Hogwarts had had good practice at it last year when it was thought Wormtail was going to come around the next corner Harry turned and kill him. Fortunately, or rather unfortunately seeing as Wormtail became a traitor to Voldemort that very year, Wormtail died, having had no intention to kill Harry whatsoever. Harry had long wondered when the time would come when his decision to not have Wormtail killed would come back and make him glad. He was just rather upset it took three years...  
  
"Yeah, yeah," said Harry bitterly, watching Professor Trelawney write what must have been a big fat fourty out of one hundred on his paper. When she told him at the end of class that it was really a twenty, he was doubly bitter that he hadn't even done the two that he did do correctly.  
  
Care of Magical Creatures was no picnic either, Harry thought, as Hagrid pulled him aside from the group of very unhappy students tending to giant oxen with golden hides Hagrid said were called re'em. He had said at the beginning of class that drinking their blood gives the drinker immense strength and demonstrated by drinking a sip from a goblet and throwing one of them twenty feet in the air and then catching it. Before Harry could even explain what was bothering him this time, Hagrid had come right out with the story that Dumbledore had told him that morning at breakfast.  
  
"Oh, so he's telling the entire staff then, is he?" said Harry, feeling slightly annoyed.  
  
"No, Harry, nothing like that," Hagrid assured him, smiling broadly. "He knows I talk ter yeh a lot and probably just wanted ter mention it. Mind their charging, Malfoy!" Hagrid called out, noticing that one was chasing Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson around Hagrid's cabin.  
  
He took another sip from the goblet of re'em blood, chased the re'em chasing Malfoy and Parkinson, picked it up and tethered it with a rope thicker than Harry's arm.  
  
"Very strong, these re'em," said Hagrid, beaming. "Why d'yeh think their blood makes yeh so strong? It must be because they're, too," he said knowledgeably.  
  
"Yeah," Harry muttered, watching Malfoy pull a small knife out of his pocket, clearly wanting to drink re'em blood, "right. So did he say when I'm getting the cloak back?" Harry asked a little louder.  
  
"I don't think he's keen on yeh gettin' it back, Harry, and that's why he's taking his time," said Hagrid, still beaming. Harry glared at him. Hagrid coughed nervously. "But I -- er -- he said that he was going ter be speaking with Dudley and Malfoy after classes today since they don't have any breaks until then. And don' worry about them destroying it. If they do, I assure yeh they'll be thoroughly kicked out of Hogwarts fer it. Good old Lucius Malfoy won' be too happy ter hear that his son has been kicked outta school, mind, but ah, who cares about him."  
  
Harry agreed but had a nasty feeling, however dumb it might be, that if Malfoy was to do one last thing, it would be to destroy one of Harry's most prized possessions.  
  
"Anyway," Hagrid went on, "onto better subjects. I think yeh're goin' ter like our next lesson." Hagrid went out the front door of his cabin to watch the class.  
  
Hermione had managed to tether them all up so they couldn't chase anyone around anymore and by the looks of her smoking wand, it took quite a few charms.  
  
"Next week we'll be doin' demiguises," Hagrid told the entire class -- and then they squirmed at this name. Harry and Ron, of course, knew it was coming.  
  
"But Hagrid," Hermione said at once and Harry could immediately tell she had something to say about demiguises, "they can turn invisible. How are we supposed to see them if they can hide? And exactly how did you manage to catch one?"  
  
To answer her questions, Hagrid, if possible, simply smiled more broadly. The class' continued stare forced him to cough up that he was going to use a potion of True Seeing and also said that --  
  
"If yeh were really tryin' hard, yeh don' need a potion ter see 'em. Professor Dumbledore can see right through something such as an Invisibility Cloak," Hagrid mentioned, with a half glance at Harry. "The fur of a demiguise is -- well how about I save this fer that lesson, eh?" he said jovially, getting ahead of himself.  
  
Hagrid was now smiling so broadly that Harry thought his face was going to stick like that. It wasn't until during lunch that Hermione suggested he might have been under the influence of a Cheering Charm.  
  
"Do you like Hagrid's lessons these days?" said Harry, taking another serving of sausages.  
  
"They're all right," said Ron, shrugging. "He's certainly gotten better since our first year with him."  
  
"D'you think he'll tell us how Dumbledore can see through Invisibility Cloaks without that potion?" Harry asked, unable to stop his face from breaking into the smallest of smiles.  
  
"Harry, I think you have a better chance at Professor Trelawney saying that you're not going to die this year," said Ron flatly.  
  
"But what was up with Hagrid today?" said Harry, changing the subject.  
  
"Professor Flitwick joined the Committee on Experimental Charms," said Hermione indifferently. "He told me after class on our first day. Hagrid volunteered to help him out and must have gotten a blast of a charm gone wrong or something. It is very dangerous, though. You could get hit by a charm gone very wrong. Professor Flitwick said the first charm they had him working on over the summer gave him a leech under his skin," she said, the thought making the skin on all three of them crawl. "Had to try another experimental charm to cure it. Good thing the countercurse was farther along!"  
  
"So how're you doing in your other classes?" asked Harry, wanting to get off the topic of stomach-turning curses.  
  
"I'd tell you what we were doing today in Ancient Runes but I'd have to give you a three hour lecture on everything we did in our previous two years," said Hermione. She sighed, then added, "When we were doing a form of Divination today, the stupid Fehu and Wunjo rune kept popping up for me. I was working with Padma Patil, you know, Parvati's sister in Ravenclaw, and she kept getting some Rune about her cat dying. When we were supposed to think of someone else, she thought of you and got -- at least I think I remember -- Gebo. Weird."  
  
She pulled her Study of Ancient Runes textbook out, Runes As Limns by Lucy Rucid (the same book Harry had, he realized) and plopped it in front of her. Curious to find out what those Runes were, Harry opened the book while Hermione busied herself with finding her quill and a bottle of ink.  
  
"Harry, can I borrow your quill?" she asked, checking her bag for a third time.  
  
Ron, seeing Harry turn pages, took out his quill and handed it to Hermione. When Harry finally reached the Rune list, he had already forgotten the Rune names.  
  
"Hermione, what was that Rune Padma got?" he asked.  
  
Hermione thought for a second while staring into space and then said, "Kano?"  
  
"No, no," said Ron, looking at the book too, "you said something else."  
  
"Give me a break," Hermione snapped. "I only glanced at it."  
  
"No need to get pushy --" Ron snapped back.  
  
"Will you two ever stop?" said Harry, sliding the book back to Hermione. "And watch it, Hermione. You're about to spill pumpkin juice all over your homework."  
  
"What a crying shame that would be," said an irritated Ron in a quiet voice.  
  
Hermione glared at the pair of them, particularly hard at Ron, collected her books and stalked off.  
  
"What's eating her?" said Ron, disbelieving Hermione would get so upset about something so small.  
  
"I don't know," said Harry, disbelieving Ron would say something like that. "She might still be upset over Dudley."  
  
"Which one of us isn't?" Ron asked, going back to his lunch. "I mean, he starts consorting with the Slytherins then your dad's cloak turns up -- er -- missing. What else can go wrong?"  
  
Harry, having had his fork halfway between his plate and mouth, his mouth open wide, glanced sidelong at Ron, said firmly, "I don't want to know the answer to that one until I've got my cloak back," and stuffed the chicken in his mouth.  
  
Ron turned to Ginny, who had been silently listening with a look of deep concern on her face that Harry didn't notice, and sighed.  
  
"Half the school probably knows by now that you have an Invisibility Cloak if it was them," said Ginny which made Harry turn very quickly to her because he didn't know she'd been listening. "Besides, what's the matter?" she said, abandoning her food, more interested in Harry's issues. "You heard Professor Dumbledore. If they do anything to it they're going to get expelled and he's going to get it back from them after dinner."  
  
Harry now thought he was being silly but couldn't stop himself from saying, "It's that they have it, not really that they might do something to it (though that's bothering me, too)."  
  
Breaking the first smile since his dad's cloak had been stolen, Harry went off to do homework feeling nothing but the slight awkwardness that his good mood had resulted from Ginny and only being slightly reminded of Cho this time. The misfortune for the day was waiting to present itself and it was going to come during dinner.  
  
Harry had been intently watching Dudley, Malfoy, Parkinson, Crabbe and Goyle while Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Seamus tried to tell him that Dumbledore, Hagrid, Professor McGonagall, Professor Figg and -- oddly enough -- Percy Weasley were staring at Harry.  
  
Harry wasn't listening. Then he looked up at the staff table and saw Percy.  
  
"What's he doing here?" Harry asked.  
  
"He's here for the Triwizard Tournament, Harry," Ron replied. "And just WHY -- are you staring at them?" he said forcefully.  
  
"They keep looking at me and laughing," said Harry, staring at them again.  
  
"Harry, anyone would look at you and laugh and that's probably because you look like an idiot with ketchup on your nose," Ginny informed him, giggling.  
  
Harry, wishing he wasn't turning red, quickly took a napkin to wipe it off and then ceased his staring.  
  
"Anyway, Percy said Dumbledore's going to make the announcement about that thing Hogwarts is doing around Christmas time," said Ron. "He wouldn't give me details but I think it's going to be for over the vacation."  
  
"When are the students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons coming, again?" asked Harry, helping himself to more bread and trying to keep his mind off his dad's cloak.  
  
"October. And then the Goblet of Fire is going to give the names on Halloween," said Ron, reading Harry's mind. "I can't wait. This one's going to be great."  
  
"Yes," Harry agreed, "especially for me since this time I won't be forced to compete."  
  
Harry recalled the absolute horror he had experienced the same second the Goblet of Fire had spit his name out. The only person out of very few who believed he hadn't hoodwinked the Goblet was Hermione -- even Ron didn't believe him. There was no way he was going to put himself through that again if he had anything to do with it. For the first task, collecting an egg from a really big, fire breathing dragon, he'd only had one day of practice of the Summoning Charm to get his Firebolt to help him. The second task, retrieve Ron from under the lake at Hogwarts, if it wasn't for Dobby overhearing Barty Crouch talking about Gillyweed, Harry would have looked like a fool in front of the entire school. Harry, compete? No way. How good it would have been to go to Hogsmeade that year with all the rest of his friends and joke about how dangerous the coming tasks were going to be! Except that he was the one whose stomach squirmed every time someone joked about it...  
  
He put his fork down, sighed and looked up at Malfoy, Dudley, Crabbe and Goyle at the Slytherin table, looking past the Ravenclaw table (and partly wishing Cho was there to look at him and then annoy him by turning to her friends and giggling). Malfoy got Dudley's attention, pointed at Harry and Dudley sniggered far louder this time.  
  
"I'm not hungry anymore," said Harry, now staring at his plate full of bread and a half eaten piece of lamb chops.  
  
"Come off it," said Ron dismissively as the four people Harry took one last look at all got up and exited the Great Hall. "Why?"  
  
Harry didn't answer. Ginny tutted loudly at the side of Ron's head.  
  
"Isn't it obvious?" she said, sounding too much like Hermione for Ron's liking.  
  
"And what do you know?"  
  
"How upset would you be if Malfoy took all those posters you have of the Chudley Cannons?"  
  
"And what do you care?" Harry snapped, not caring at all that a few first years were staring. "You're just trying to be nice to me so I'll forget about Cho and go on a date with you, too."  
  
Ginny rolled her eyes.  
  
"Harry, I don't care about Cho anymore," said Ginny flatly, and looking so serious that Harry had no choice but to believe her. "It's not about winning you over -- okay, fine, it used to be but it isn't anymore," she added quickly, noting Harry starting to scowl. "I'm bothering now solely because I care about you. Even if nothing happens this year, it's not exactly starting out like roses, is it, now? Stop goggling at me, Ron," she said, rounding on him, "and answer my question. How would you feel if Malfoy did that?"  
  
"Well I --" Ron started, taking a quick glance at Harry who had pushed his plate to the middle of the table and rested his head on his arms, the sight of which made Ron stop dead. "What's eating you?" Ron asked him.  
  
There was a very distressing pause. After a minute of Hermione, Ron and Ginny looking at Harry with bated breath for an answer, he picked his head up, opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it and put his head back down.  
  
"You're acting like you have the stupid Mark of Ancients again," Hermione scoffed, "and are trying to fight off another permanent Imperius."  
  
"And what if I do?" said Harry thickly, his faced buried in his arms.  
  
"You don't," she said firmly, "because they removed it, remember?"  
  
Raides, who had been quiet so far, casually picked up the biggest goblet full of water on the table with her tail and innocently splashed it in Harry's face, saying, "Snap out of it." Ginny, Ron and Hermione couldn't help but break out laughing. Harry pushed his sopping hair out of his eyes and Hermione handed him a few napkins to wipe his face. Raides had still managed to soak the front of his robes quite well -- but the water cooled him down so he didn't mind so much.  
  
He then succumbed to the idea that he had better stop getting so upset and clutched the Order of Merlin plaque in a fashion so no one would notice, feeling slightly guilty like he always did when he grabbed it. It had it's usual effect of spreading a small wave of calmness throughout his body and dropping his shoulders half an inch.  
  
"Holding that plaque reminds you nothing you have done is a waste and it is that feeling of self-confidence that you have been hanging over since you moved into Privet Drive," went Dumbledore's voice in his head and he wished he could forget that Dumbledore had ever said it.  
  
"Now come on," said Raides. "Eat. I know you're still hungry."  
  
Harry picked the bread up off his plate and stood up.  
  
"I think I'll go and finish Professor Trelawney's homework," he said. "Maybe I can get that twenty changed into at least a thirty."  
  
"Nothing happening," said Ron at once. "She told me that she really gave you a twenty five -- the extra five points being for the fact that she knew that you would want to go and do the other three. And she didn't tell you because she also knew you would ask me," Ron added hastily, watching Harry's mouth open.  
  
"Load of crap," said Hermione, leaving her mouth open in disgust as she finished, looking up at Harry. "If she made one correct prediction in our first year, I'll eat Crookshanks!"  
  
"Ketchup or barbecue?" Raides asked Hermione casually, munching on her troll meat, now flame-broiled while wrapped in salamander skin. Harry, Ron and Hermione wished Raides hadn't ever told them this ("Hey, it gives it that extra kick and some bits of the skin melt on," she had said excitedly).  
  
"Don't believe anything that foul woman says, Harry," said Hermione. "She can only predict small things."  
  
Hermione seemed to forget one thing that Professor Trelawney said that wasn't small and turned out to be correct. Harry reminded her that Professor Trelawney went into a trance and had predicted Wormtail's escape from the clutches of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Professor Lupin and Sirius to revive Lord Voldemort. Hermione bit her lip and said she was sorry.  
  
"She may be old," said Harry gloomily, "but she's made real predictions." He rolled his eyes, then said, "You remember what she said to me in our first class?"  
  
"Something about whatever happening become hard to bear, then you won't have to experience it for a while then you'll wake up or whatever," said Ron. "Then it'll get worse and when it's over, your life's going to change completely. Whatever, Harry," he said dismissively. "She's a fraud. How can you expect her to predict that much? And accurately?"  
  
Harry stared. He didn't know what to think. The mood had turned very dim in a very short amount of time.  
  
"See you," he said, then squeezed the water out of his hair and exited the Great Hall.  
  
He climbed the marble staircase, walked through a few fake walls, gave the password to the Fat Lady ("Light of Faith") and was greeted by a bunch of Gryffindors asking him --  
  
"Harry! Are you going to put your name in the Goblet of Fire in October?"  
  
"No," he replied so quickly it sounded rude and walked towards the spiral staircase, hearing but not paying attention to the "Harry, you have to!" and the "If you enter, Hogwarts is sure to win!" He knew that wasn't the last time he would be hearing people urging him to enter.  
  
He was just about to go back downstairs into the common room with his Charms homework ("Write two sheets of parchment on why wizards and witches don't Disapparate and Apparate instead of walking when traveling short distances") when he got a pleasant surprise.  
  
"Hedwig!" he shouted as she came in through the window and landed on his bed, skidding two feet before flipping over. "I was wondering when you were coming back," he said, hurrying over to her.  
  
There was a brown envelope attached to her leg. He tore it off and pulled out several pieces of parchment, some pieces carrying Cho's writing and the others, Sirius'. He didn't know which one he wanted to read more and so the last one he was looking at was Cho's.  
  
Dear Harry,  
  
I just want to say that I'm sorry for anything that didn't exactly make your day while I was over your house but there's a few things I want to get out of the way. If you can tell me why your body went so stiff it was like you were Petrified when I, well, I won't write it because you'll probably do it again, it would make me feel a lot better.  
  
Three little words echoed in the back of Harry's mind but it was far worse hearing them than just thinking about them, especially the way she said it. The problem was, he couldn't answer this question. Modest and shy Harry. Someone telling him they -- that? It was a flood of emotion he just wasn't ready to handle... yet. Or was it? Trying not to mull over it too much because it made his head hurt, he continued reading.  
  
I'm sorry for all that time when I wasn't talking to you. It was just too weird, I didn't know what to do but you saw that I didn't completely ignore you because I made your breakfast until we were talking again. I also wanted to say that I had a great time and I hope you did too, except, of course, for that day when we came back from the mall. It was weird how he just walked away, wasn't it?  
  
Yeah, thought Harry, weird... He didn't think he really wanted to know what happened.  
  
As for me, my dad's getting along much better these days, I don't know why. I think he sort of trusts you now but don't ask me why he didn't before. Maybe after seeing you in person, he's gotten over himself. But anyway...  
  
So, I hope you're doing well in your classes and everything's going all right for a change. I know you, you won't want to hear this but I'm sitting here biting my lip, worried that you're all right! Take care of yourself, Harry, and stay out of trouble. I'll write again and you can always write to me if you want.  
  
Sincerely,  
  
Cho  
  
While he didn't like her telling him to stay out of trouble because it made her sound too much like a -- like she was right. He didn't want to hear it but now that he did, he didn't mind it so much. He just liked the idea that someone cared enough about him to bother. Harry had a sudden vision of Cho and Mrs. Weasley sitting in a corner of a room, crying, so worried about him that their nerves were on fire and holding each other because they couldn't stand it.  
  
But enough of that, Cho's timing couldn't have been better, he thought. Just a few moments ago, Harry was in one of the worst moods he'd been in in a while and now, now there was plenty reason to keep that smile on his face even if it was small. He crossed his fingers while picking up Sirius' letter, hoping that whatever his godfather had to tell him, it was only good news (or at least more good than bad). Considering Harry had only spoken to Sirius for two days in the past two months, he was quite keen on reading what he had to say.  
  
Dear Harry,  
  
You probably read Cho's letter first so first thing I want you to do is calm yourself because I don't exactly have all good news. Slow down and read carefully because you need to pay attention.  
  
That wasn't exactly the grand start that Harry had in mind. Feeling half-rotten again, he pulled his cloak off, threw it on his pillow and sat down on his four-post bed.  
  
As you already know, Severus Snape was sent to go spy on Voldemort for us. He wasn't greeted with a warm welcome but rather, the first thing our slippery friend saw fit to do was torture Snape with the Cruciatus Curse. Now, while I don't like either of them very much, Snape and I are seeing the beginnings of what, if you look far enough away, may look like the start of a friendship... While we're still not buddy-buddy, I've seen the Cruciatus Curse and I wouldn't wish it on anyone except maybe Voldemort.  
  
Feeling Sirius had said everything exactly as he was thinking it, Harry had to agree except for one thing. He might be slightly more willing to wish it on Snape because he had felt the curse several unpleasant times, each time far less enjoyable than the last...  
  
"You don't know the half of it, Sirius," he muttered darkly to himself and then continued reading.  
  
Voldemort's playing around with the Mark of Ancients on Thantanos Quirrel but Snape couldn't exactly find out what. We managed to slip Michelle to safety and confirmed her loyalty against Voldemort with a Truth Potion before Thantanos could get to her. So in a word, she's safe but she nearly died crying when we told her that you didn't die from the Killing Curse again.  
  
Harry giggled grimly.  
  
It's just not funny how worried sick she is over you and frankly none of us can see why. She said that when you're, in her words, forced to do something so mean, rotten, dirty, disgusting, terrible, nasty, low-down, despicable, horrid and feel free to insert more adjectives at will, you feel nothing but guilty. We have a feeling she won't get over it until this is all over and Voldemort's dead.  
  
Harry now added Michelle Quirrel to the scene with Cho and Mrs. Weasley. Now it was rather amusing.  
  
And don't you worry, Voldemort will die as this is where the good news is. While he'll be extremely hard to kill because he's rivaling Dumbledore's power, he's no longer invincible. The idiot made himself mortal when he took blood from you! You probably still don't get it so I'll explain it just a little.  
  
You already know that wizards and witches live longer than Muggles. Basically, the more powerfully magical you are, more or less, the more your body can withstand so you'll live to a ripe old age. That's not it, of course. There's a branch of magic dealing with natural immunities and resistances and there's no doubt in anyone's mind from the Order of the Phoenix that Voldemort had played with this in his attempts to make himself immortal. Now, remember that the Killing Curse, Avada Kedavra requires quite a bit of magic behind it. Usually, there's just enough skill in the caster to kill but if you've been playing with magical immunities and resistances, you might be able to resist being killed from it.  
  
And before you start thinking that, no, we're one hundred percent sure you don't have this kind of natural immunity to the Killing Curse. You wouldn't have been knocked out when you got hit with it again and you wouldn't even have that scar on your forehead. No one really has ever bothered with this branch of magic because it requires a ridiculous amount of skill behind the potions to administer them. You can end up killing yourself in the process. This is all part of the Dark arts that Voldemort had been dabbling in after he left Hogwarts. Besides, in most cases where someone has tried this stuff, they've asked their friends to try the curse on them and it left them in such a bad state, they ended up finishing themselves off.  
  
Now, enough of the bad stuff. The bottom line is, is that Voldemort's not going to survive another backlash from the Killing Curse. Snape managed to get to us that Voldemort managed to survive the more recent on one you because he Disapparated the moment he let the spell off and therefore was never exposed to the rebounded curse but part of it did get to him and that's why he was stripped again. It was just luck that saved him that time. Yes, I know: "damn, why couldn't he have just stayed." That's exactly how we all feel.  
  
Harry didn't know whether to feel glad or upset at this point. He supposed glad, because it was all going to end one way or another and if Voldemort didn't pull any one-ups on them by experimenting with resistances and immunities, they were in the clear. Then quite suddenly, Harry realized Voldemort might have done exactly that. On he read...  
  
While it's possible that Voldemort might have tried playing with this again, we're not entirely sure that he even knows he's mortal. We only know this because Dumbledore knows this. You probably saw him smiling to himself very briefly after you told him that Voldemort took blood from you three years ago. Don't ask how he knows, but he's one hundred percent sure. He told us and I'm not sure I even understand it. So yeah.  
  
Let's recap. Voldemort's possibly no longer immortal. We can kill him and you can bet your life we're going to try as hard as possible. We're not sure what or where he is because Snape told us they have them Disapparating to a secluded area that he doesn't recognize at all and he puts Memory Charms on them that we've been trying to break for the longest time. If we try any harder, it's going to damage Snape's memory and as much as I'd like to damage certain parts of it, we can't have that.  
  
Harry really wished they could damage the part about Snape hating him.  
  
Our biggest worry is that one of his Death Eaters, Thantanos, has the Mark of Ancients. Dumbledore has been playing with the anti-Disapparation enchantments at Hogwarts and said that you will have to help him with Raides so they can't Apparate inside the castle. This means that you won't be able to either but I'm sure you'll agree to make that sacrifice if it means no repeat of last year. Dumbledore's going to talk to you about this after your next Paladism class.  
  
Harry didn't have any objections.  
  
Now onto you. Cho already told you this and I know you don't want to hear it so I won't say that we're concerned about you (ha, I said it). Keep your grades up, don't worry about me, study hard for your N.E.W.T.s, stay out of trouble and I hope you have fun with what's going on at Hogwarts besides the Triwizard Tournament!  
  
Keep in touch,  
  
Sirius  
  
PS: Remus Lupin says hi!  
  
PPS: Sorry about Hedwig. Dumbledore used her to write to me and then I sent her to Cho first, suggesting she say hi, too. She wrote to me first, slightly insulted that I asked her to write to you. She said she was going to anyway and that she just wanted to "wait a day." Naturally you can see right through it; she really hadn't planned on it and didn't want either of us to think she hadn't thought of that. Girls... You picked a good one though, she has her heart in the right place.  
  
Sirius did it perfectly. While the beginning of it was nothing to be happy about, he made it go from bad to good. Now positively grinning and feeling only slightly awkward about Sirius talking to him about his -- his girlfriend, Harry wanted to show Ron, Hermione, Raides -- and possibly Ginny -- Sirius' letter. He would have to be held at wand point, though, to show them Cho's letter. That one was entirely personal. Well, maybe he'd snip the second postscript off of Sirius'...  
  
He was just slightly bitter that Sirius didn't want to spill the beans on what was going on besides the tournament, though... 


	17. Comeuppance

Chapter 17: COMEUPPANCE  
  
Harry had barely taken two steps down the spiral staircase, carrying parchment, his phoenix-feather quill and ink bottle hand when Ron nearly knocked the ink out of his hand.  
  
"Oh, hello, Harry," he said.  
  
"Watch it, hey?"  
  
"Oh, doing your homework now, are you?" said Ron, smirking.  
  
"I got a letter from Sirius," Harry told Ron, pausing for a second to ponder whether he should tell Ron about the other letter, "and one from Cho. You can read Sirius' but you're off your rocker if you think I'm going to show you Cho's," he said, turning slightly pink around the ears. "Come, you can read it while I'm doing this stupid essay."  
  
Harry led Ron back up to his dormitory, hastily shoved Cho's letter into some part of his bedside cabinet while Ron wasn't looking and handed him the letter from Sirius. The two of them went back down into the common room, taking a seat by a table, ignoring one first year girl hurriedly walking away at the sight of Raides entering from the portrait hole. Raides rolled her eyes, spotted Harry and Ron and settled herself at their feet.  
  
While Harry was doing his homework, Ron told Raides about Sirius' letter.  
  
"Finish it and give it here!" she said quietly and feverishly.  
  
"What are you so interested in what Sirius has to say?" said Harry, generally curious.  
  
"I just like him. He has that sarcastic sense of humor you've come to know and love that I have, too," she said, her golden head contorted in a very toothy grin.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes and stared at his last sentence: "A strong reason for not wanting to Disapparate more than usual would be because of the unpleasant phenomenon of splinching." He recalled how he had gotten splinched and how he didn't want to repeat the experience...  
  
"How long is yours?" Harry asked, turning to Ron.  
  
"I don't remember," Ron replied, not taking his eyes off Sirius' letter, only half listening to Harry. "Hermione was going on about how her's was four pages and couldn't possibly see how we only had to write two. What can there possibly be so much to write about? Splinching, that's it. And after seeing it happen to you, I certainly don't want it to happen to me."  
  
"Thanks, Ron," said Harry, glaring at him.  
  
"Sorry," Ron muttered.  
  
Brushing off his slight displeasure with Ron -- because it certainly wouldn't help to stay angry -- he went back to writing but was quite stuck on what to write next.   
  
Then, after a minute, the next sentence came to him ("After a certain personal experience with splinching, it is easily the most compelling reason to not abuse Disapparation by using it more often than is necessary").  
  
Ron had probably read the letter three times over before he tapped Harry on the arm.  
  
"This is some pretty heavy stuff," he said sounding very serious. "Do they really think Voldemort's no longer immortal? That another Killing Curse will finish him off?"  
  
"I just hope so," said Harry.  
  
"C'mon, Ron," said Raides, "fork it over."  
  
"You can read?" Ron asked blankly.  
  
"Yes! Now drop it so I can look at it."  
  
Ron did as he was told and Raides shifted the pieces of parchment with her paw. Ginny ambled over to ask what was going on. Upon remembering what Dumbledore had told Harry, Ron and Hermione about the Order of the Phoenix, Ron couldn't tell Ginny as Dumbledore had told them to not mention to anyone else about it. Since the letter mentioned it... She got pushy and Ron told her to "bugger off." Folding her arms, she finally went back to a few Gryffindor sixth years.  
  
"So they're going to try to kill him then?" said Ron, making sure he had read correctly.  
  
"Yes," said Raides, having had just finished reading and looking up at Ron. "And close your mouth, I read fast," she added irritably.  
  
"Just as long as it doesn't involve me but then they bring me to look at his dead and decaying body," said Harry, longing for the moment.  
  
While Raides and Ron discussed the finer points of Thantanos, the Mark of Ancients and Michelle crying herself hoarse over Harry, Harry himself tried to continue his essay but found that he simply couldn't. He should have finished eating.  
  
He looked at his gold wristwatch and saw that dinner had, unfortunately, just ended. Harry put his phoenix-feather quill in the ink well, slouched back in his chair, folded his arms and sighed. There was no denying it: he was hungry. Dennis Creevey was finishing up a Chocolate Frog and James Griffith, a sixth year with an appearance very closely resembling Harry's father (both of them had untidy black hair and glasses) had a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans out.  
  
Harry's stomach made a grumble and he was sure it wasn't because he missed Cho. He would have been able to get something to eat, but his cloak was missing. He voiced this to Ron.  
  
"Harry, you have me, and you can still Apparate around the castle until after your next Paladism class," Raides reminded him. "For God's sake, Disapparate to the kitchens and get yourself something. I'm sure Dobby and friends would be glad to ablidge."  
  
But suddenly, Harry was reminded of something else. Ron stared for a moment, trying to figure it out because this realization showed on Harry's face. Then, just as suddenly, Ron broke out trying to find the words to stop Harry.  
  
"Harry, no!" he hissed. "That's just the thing Dumbledore doesn't want you doing! You're not Disapparating into the Slytherin common room! Let Dumbledore handle it!"  
  
Harry smirked at him.  
  
"I'm just going to get myself something to eat and then get my cloak back," he said innocently. "What's the harm?"  
  
"What's the harm?" Ron continued hissing and trying to sound as much like Hermione as he could possibly be. "I'll tell you what the harm is, you're going to get detention. And lots of it! Hermione!" he added, watching her enter through the portait hole.  
  
"Hello, Ron --"  
  
"I was just telling Harry here why he shouldn't use Raides to Disapparate to the Slytherin common room to steal his dad's cloak back," Ron hissed urgently at her, pulling Hermione by the arm over to Harry.  
  
Hermione's face changed from a smile to one so much resembling Professor McGonagall's hideous stare that it was frightening. Her lips went so thin Harry could swear she had put an Invisibility Cloak on them.  
  
Harry stood up, defying both of them. Raides, to Harry's relief and Ron and Hermione's disgust, was completely indifferent.  
  
"C'mon, Raides," said Harry. "We have some food to get and a cloak to steal," he added in an undertone to her.  
  
She crawled out from under the table, leapt up, becoming surrounded in misty gray smoked and emerged the seven foot long Staff of Cybele, complete with golden fur and scarlet crystal. People were obviously not used to this yet and many Gryffindors stared. Harry caught the staff by the middle when the smoke disappeared.  
  
He held her at his side, the staff towering a few feet over his head, and, in the middle of the Gryffindor common room, Disapparated with a pop to the Hogwarts kitchens, startling the hundred or so house-elves in the process.  
  
When their shock of someone Disapparating wore off, they stared at the Staff of Cybele which had just turned back into a seven foot long lion.  
  
"What," said Raides in a hoarse, irritated voice.  
  
"Harry Potter!" squealed an elf with bulging green tennis ball-sized eyes and large bat-like ears.  
  
"Hello, Dobby," said Harry as the elf grabbed him around the mid riff.  
  
"We house elves has heard about the Staff of Cybele, sir," said Dobby, still staring at it, "but Dobby never knew that the staff would let a human Disapparate, totally ignoring the magic around Hogwarts!"  
  
"Well, get used to it," said Harry, more to himself than to Dobby.  
  
Dobby was now draped in a sweater bearing the Hogwarts coat of arms, a pair of mismatched socks, and a ridiculous, polka dot pointed hat.  
  
"Dobby never expected to see Harry Potter, sir! Especially by Harry Potter just Apparating! What brings Harry Potter here?"  
  
"Er -- can you just call me Harry or Potter?" Harry asked sheepishly.  
  
"No, sir!" said Dobby at once. "Dobby means no --"  
  
"But, really --"  
  
"-- disrespect to --"  
  
"-- you wouldn't --"  
  
"-- Harry Potter!"  
  
"-- oh, nevermind," he said, giving up. "Look, I missed dinner -- don't ask -- and am just a bit hungry. D'you think... you could?"  
  
"Of course, sir!" squeaked Dobby excitedly.  
  
An elf with similar bat-like ears, enormous brown eyes and a nose that could be mistaken for a tomato if it was colored as one, walked over instantly, carrying a platter of bread, sweets, chicken legs and pumpkin juice, among other favorites of Harry's. This elf was another one Harry knew, a female named Winky. Winky had been binded to the Crouch family until she had been sacked for failing to keep Barty Crouch's son, also named Barty, under the Imperius Curse. This was a long story, indeed... Both Winky and Dobby had since found work at Hogwarts for Dumbledore.  
  
"I'd love to stay and chat," Harry lied, making it up as he went and taking the entire platter, "but I have homework to do and that's why I missed dinner."  
  
"Good-bye, Harry Potter!" said Dobby, as a bunch of house-elves waved their hands at him.  
  
"Oh, not now," said Raides, sounding both miserable and disappointed. "I was just trying out the custard."  
  
Harry glared at her and she leapt into the air once again, amidst horrified looks on the elves, Harry catching her once again as the misty gray smoke disappeared. Harry then Disapparated to his dormitory in Gryffindor tower, only to be greeted by the angry faces of both Ron and Hermione.  
  
"Hungry?" said Harry, taking a bite out of a slice of a red pepper.  
  
Ron and Hermione continued glaring at Harry like he had done something foul but broke down and each took a cupcake off the platter to munch on. Neither of them still, Hermione told Harry, liked the idea of him Disapparating into the Slytherin common room. They were further upset when Harry also realized he could use Foresight on just about anyone.  
  
Raides, who, she informed them, was fully loyal to any ancient that was using her, didn't have any objection for being used to do whatever Harry wanted to use her for. It was almost like she had no conscience, Harry thought for a fleeting moment, no conscience to stop a Dark wizard from doing his dirty work.  
  
"Harry," said Hermione pleadingly, "if you're going to Disapparate, please, please, please, promise to us that you won't use Foresight ever again."  
  
Harry looked from each of their desperate faces, to the platter of food sitting on his bed to the golden head of the giant staff he was holding in his hand. At this point, he didn't understand why Hermione wanted him to promise that to her but it seemed that she succumbed to the idea that she couldn't stop him from Disapparating. He had already stolen food from the kitchens... Maybe it was because that Foresight was such a dangerous ability in itself? The ability to peer into someone's mind, anyone's mind, at any time, to know exactly what they were doing, seeing or thinking, to be them, all on command...  
  
This is what Dark wizards do, he thought instantly. They have powers, powers that can be easily abused and they go ahead and abuse them. Not wanting to be labeled as a Dark wizard for using Foresight (and considering he had already done enough damage with it concerning the Sorting Hat), Harry dropped the idea of using it for personal purposes -- ever.  
  
Althought that still wasn't going to stop him from Disapparating into the Slytherin common room.  
  
"I wouldn't need Raides to sneak into the kitchens," said Harry angrily. "I could have done it with the Invisibility Cloak but I seem to be missing that, don't I?"  
  
And with that, he Disapparated not a second later.  
  
"-- and the look on his face when he sees we've destroyed it," Malfoy was saying enthusiastically, "it'll be class-" but he stopped dead at the sight of Harry standing there, staring daggers at him, the enormous Staff of Cybele clutched in his hand.  
  
"Harry!" squealed Dudley, sitting on a couch next to the fire, shaking from head to pudgy toe. "H-h-how?" he stammered.  
  
Harry wasn't too interested in his surroundings. There was a bunch of round, greenish lamps hanging from chains on the ceiling which hung very low. The walls and ceiling were made of rough stone. A fire crackled under an elaborately carved mantelpiece and there were seveal high-backed chairs, concealing only the heads of the Slytherins who had risen from their seats to gape at Harry.  
  
He rolled the Staff of Cybele with both of his hands, stopping when it was perfectly horizontal, watching the horrified faces of Malfoy, Dudley and the other few Slytherins and slowly walked towards Malfoy. The only words that echoed in his head were "when he sees we've destroyed it."  
  
This made him angry. Very, very angry.  
  
His grip around the Staff of Cybele tightened to the point that the crystal at the tip of Raides' mouth disappeared. She let out a roar which told him to loosen his grip, which he did. But he did that on purpose. He wanted her to roar. It made him look threatening.  
  
"Destroyed it, have you?" said Harry in a very soft tone that had just enough anger in it to nail Dudley's feet where he stood.  
  
Malfoy, on the other hand, wasn't exactly as scared as Dudley.  
  
"That's right, Potter," he spat.  
  
Malfoy walked over to a bag sitting on a table and pulled out the Invisibility Cloak, smirking. To Harry's utter horror, it really had been destroyed, or at the very least, damaged: it was torn at some edges and what looked horribly like burn marks were at some other edges. Now he had done it, Malfoy should have expected was to come next.  
  
Harry's instincts kicked in. He let go of Raides. Malfoy's smirk dropped just as fast as Raides to the floor.  
  
"RELEGO!" Harry shouted, holding his left arm behind his head and flailing his right arm as if it were a wand, his index finger pointing at Dudley and his pinky pointing at Malfoy.  
  
The result of this strange way to cast a spell was that both Malfoy and Dudley were lifted from where they stood or sat and were thrown up and slammed, very hard, against the wall behind them. They crashed into each other before sliding down the wall. Malfoy dropped the cloak out of shock.  
  
Harry then opened his hand and shouted, "Accio cloak!" causing the cloak to fly into his hand.  
  
Malfoy and Dudley were just about to get up when Harry raised his free outstretched hand, oddly causing the two of them to raise up off the floor and become pinned against the wall again. This caused Malfoy's pale, pointed face to go much whiter than usual and Dudley's fat face was looking just as white.   
  
Harry couldn't explain it, but he felt something intensely powerful coursing through him, like a huge wave of energy that was letting him do all of this without the staff, even without his wand.  
  
"If I -- EVER --" he shouted, now thoroughly pissed off that they had intentionally damaged a very personal item of his, feeling himself shaking with inexpressable anger, "catch you two stealing my stuff again," he went on, now his voice shaking with anger, "-- D-Dumbledore," said Harry, his blank eyes taking the full view of the wizard that just entered.  
  
All of the blood suddenly drained out of Harry's face which gave him a very pale look. Sweat broke out over his forehead; he didn't expect this to happen and he certainly didn't expect Dumbledore to walk in on it. Dumbledore was staring at Harry, whose outstretched hand was pinning Malfoy and Dudley to a wall. Dumbledore had a look of deepest displeasure on his face and there was absolutely no sparkle behind his half-moon spectacles. His hands were folded in front of him as he slowly walked in.  
  
"Harry, drop them," he said firmly, but no louder than his usual tone which made Harry feel far worse than he did after seeing the condition of the cloak.  
  
He always silently wished Dumbledore would shout rather than talk in such a disappointing tone. Perhaps that was how he always got his point across so effectively?  
  
Harry's hand dropped like a rock, causing Malfoy and Dudley to do the same.  
  
"I had just come to collect the cloak, Harry," said Dumbledore, his face very somber, "and retrieve their Head of House and who should I find here but you."  
  
"Professor, I," Harry began, without a clue of what he was going to say, "I --"  
  
"It is clear that you took your staff," said Dumbledore, his voice oozing of disappointment, "Disapparated here and were to just take your father's Invisibility Cloak" -- Dumbledore peered over at Dudley who looked indifferent at this news then turned back to Harry -- "and Disapparate back to your own common room. You had suspected that the cloak had been damaged -- and I see that it has been -- but did not expect it to be and decided to vent your anger, Harry, I see."  
  
Harry stared. He didn't know what to do, say or think and this time there were only three words running through his mind: "points," "lose" and "detention." There was a fourth one that started with an "e" but he hoped that it wouldn't come to that.  
  
Within seconds, Professor Figg entered from the stone wall. Professor Dumbledore walked over to her and quietly explained the situation to her in such a low voice that Harry only caught a few words here and there. Instinctively, Harry walked over to the staff and picked it up. Raides hadn't said anything.  
  
Malfoy and Dudley got up and both walked over towards Professor Figg, occassionally looking awkwardly at Harry, who took a seat on a dark green three-seat couch opposite the fireplace. Harry laid the staff down on the floor in front of himself and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands, staring at the crackling fire.  
  
When Professor Dumbledore finished speaking with Professor Figg, the two of them turned towards Harry.  
  
"Harry, Raides," said Dumbledore, his voice still somber, "please follow me."  
  
Without looking up, Harry stood up and started walking towards Dumbledore. Raides, however, lay motionless on the floor, still as the staff. Dumbledore looked at her and stared for a second.  
  
"Raides," he called again.  
  
She didn't move.  
  
Now at Dumbledore's side, Harry looked down at the floor at her and called her over. In an instant, the usual misty gray smoke consumed the staff and the next second she emerged as the great golden and scarlet lion. Without a second thought about why she didn't listen to him, Dumbledore took the Invisibility Cloak from Harry. He led Harry, Raides and Professor McGonagall to the office of the latter while Malfoy and Dudley were being vehemently yelled at by Professor Figg. Apparently no one had ever stolen anything at Hogwarts and purposely damaged another student's property in seventy years -- or at least since the time Ginny had broken into Harry's dormitory in his second year to steal the diary of Tom Riddle from him.  
  
Inside Professor McGonagall's office while Dumbledore explained what happened to her, many speeches from Hermione were now going through Harry's head, many of them including phrases such as "how stupid are you," "what did you expect" and the ever annoying, "I told you so!"  
  
When Dumbledore finished, her lips were so thin, if Harry looked, he almost wouldn't be able to see them. Her eyes were on the brink of popping with anger.  
  
"Potter!" she said so sharply that Harry's foot kicked Raides, who was lying in front of Harry, sharply in the stomach and he looked up with a start.  
  
Harry was almost as tall as her now but she had a way of making anyone cower under her anger.  
  
"Ouch," said Raides in a lazy drawl, rubbing her stomach with her enormous tail. It looked like Harry barely even hurt her.  
  
"You!" squealed Professor McGongall, turning to Raides, who stopped rubbing her stomach. "You let him!"  
  
Raides, displaying an odd kind of loyalty to Harry, didn't say anything. She went back to rubbing her stomach.  
  
Professor McGonagall paused for a few moments, waiting for an answer but she didn't get one. Harry wished Raides would answer but quite suddenly a voice in his head that he recognized as Raides' said simply, "No." Professor McGonagall now turned to Harry, seeming more appalled.  
  
"Breaking into another house common room," began Professor McGonagall exasperatedly, "threatening students, abusing an ancient staff -- which, mind you, you aren't supposed to have in the first place," she added very sternly to which the low growl of Raides permeated the air for a few seconds.  
  
Showing the Gryffindor in her, Professor McGonagall ignored it and continued unabated.   
  
"What else did he have you do?" she went on, looking at Raides.  
  
Raides, still displaying that odd loyalty, didn't answer. She looked up for a brief moment then put her head back down. It looked as if Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore didn't know that Harry also snuck into the school kitchens.  
  
"I thought I had been most ashamed of Gryffindor students when yourself and Mr. Weasley were sneaking about the castle at night in your first year, telling rubbish stories about dragons to Malfoy and Longbottom!" she squeaked, her eyes now popping with anger. "Well I do hope you've accomplished what you set out for, Potter," she said sharply.  
  
"Excuse me, Minerva," said Dumbledore, taking the opportunity to speak while Professor McGonagall's head raced for the most incriminating words to say, "but I must see to another matter."  
  
Harry watched the cloak go and stared at the floor when it was out of sight. He was convinced Dumbledore was going to confiscate it and Harry would never see it again until the end of the year. Better in Dumbledore's hands than Malfoy's, Harry thought bitterly.  
  
When Professor McGongall was sure she had found the words to make Harry feel as bad as possible, she continued.  
  
"I hope we don't find you abusing other aspects of ancient magic," she said, peering at him over the tops of her square spectacles and pausing momentarily in case he looked up to see her thin lips, "especially Foresight!"  
  
Harry was reminded of the talk about that very subject with Ron and Hermione. He wasn't remotely pleased that he wanted to use it to find out what Malfoy and Dudley were currently thinking but he had a feeling Professor Figg would be just as good as Professor McGonagall. At least it wasn't Professor Snape because then they wouldn't even get a detention.  
  
"You better be staring at your shoes, Potter!" she continued. "Sixty points will deducted from Gryffindor for your -- shameful -- behavior -- and," she barked, "you will be assigned a detention. I cannot express in words our displeasure about your abuse of that staff, Potter. The only reason we agree to let you keep it is that if You-Know-Who comes to pay us a visit! The Ministry of Magic highly disagrees with us on this opinion and the Minister himself expressed his concern about a matter such as this happening."  
  
Harry never liked Cornelius Fudge much. Mr. Fudge believed Harry to be certifiably insane after reading an article Rita Skeeter had written, describing the pains in Harry's scar as delusions and signs in insanity. This was the same Mr. Fudge that Dumbledore had said pelts him with owls asking for advice.  
  
"And, Potter, needless to say," she droned on, "this will only make our controversial decision look less credible," she said hotly. "What do you have to say for yourself?"  
  
Harry suddenly found himself unable to open his mouth. Dumbledore was making yet another controversial decision, like he had once told Harry he so frequently does, that disagrees with the Ministry of Magic to protect Harry. To make matters worse, Raides yawned and then Harry heard her voice say in his head, "Just say that you know you're wrong and you were worried sick about what they would do to your -- dad's -- make sure you emphasize that -- cloak."  
  
Harry, whose mouth was suddenly moveable again, swallowed and looked up. He was sure he wouldn't have been able to think up what Raides had told him to say. The justice in him questioned whether he should say it or not -- the Hermione in him kept saying "you know perfectly well that's going to make her not so angry at you. Don't say it."  
  
Professor McGonagall was staring at him sharply. He had to say something... and quick.  
  
"I was wrong, Professor," he found himself saying in a quiet voice, "but it's just that I was worried sick that they might have gone and completely destroyed my -- dad's cloak."  
  
And just like he thought, Professor McGonagall suddenly broke into the very faintest of smiles. But to his strange pleasure, she quickly went back to looking thoroughly angry.  
  
"Very well," said Professor McGonagall, her voice still carrying the same amount of heat. "This would warrant expulsion, Potter, don't leave without that thoroughly implanted in your head! But the only reason we are not -- is because of You-Know-Who and I'm sure you've had this impression before. However, since your life means more to us than a pack of magic tricks, you will be assigned your detention -- a fitting one -- at the end of Transfiguration Wednesday afternoon. Return to Gryffindor Tower, Potter. I'm sure you have plenty of homework to finish up."  
  
And he was dismissed, feeling that having the dream again would have been a lesser punishment. He had let down Dumbledore so much that there was only one reason he was still in school and it wasn't a very comforting reason, thought Harry, not at all.  
  
As soon as he was sure he was out of sight of everyone, a guilty hand removed the Order of Merlin plaque and held it all the way to the portrait of the Fat Lady, Raides at his heels. He put it back on just before giving her the password so as to not let anyone else see.  
  
It was a horrible feeling having to remind yourself that not -- everything -- you've done should have gotten you expelled -- but didn't -- and only because you're world famous... 


	18. Cloak Stain

Chapter 18: CLOAK STAIN  
  
Harry rolled out of bed feeling oddly happy the next morning. It took a few moments to recall where and when he had had that sick feeling in his stomach before. Then he remembered that he had fallen asleep with it and that made last night come back in a whirl of unpleasant faces and voices.  
  
He had an urge to tell Sirius about this incident, just to see if he would have done the same thing that Harry had done... and maybe to see if Sirius couldn't convince Dumbledore to give him the cloak back. Harry fought this down, thinking that Sirius would be furious at him for what he did. While eating breakfast, Harry wanted to hit himself for what he did. Why couldn't he have just taken the thing and left?  
  
"Why are you always beating yourself up?" asked Hermione.  
  
"I don't know," Harry replied in a flat tone, "but it's a bad habit of mine and I --"  
  
"And you need to stop doing it," Hermione said, eyeing him sharply.  
  
Harry blinked nervously at her a few times under her gaze, turned to Ron and saw a very similar facial expression then looked down at his half-empty plate of pancakes. He poked a particularly syrup-soaked portion of them with his fork and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing, yet thinking.  
  
Why had I blown up at all on them, he asked himself, when it would have just been better to crack a joke at Dudley and Disapparate out of there? Now I have to serve some horrible detention and Professor Trelawney is going to predict my now death more than ever, he thought bitterly.  
  
"I can't take this anymore," he finally burst out. "I'm almost glad I have one year left but I just hope I can stay somewhere else but the Dursley's. And worse yet, I've got no idea what I want to do with my life."  
  
"You're good at Quidditch," Ron reminded Harry.  
  
"With my luck I'll get hit by both Spiked Snitches, one in each eye," said Harry grimly, looking for the next likely piece of pancake to spear with his fork.  
  
"My parents said I could wait until I'm eighteen before I really have to start deciding," said Hermione thoughtfully.  
  
Harry took a momentary break from his search to glare at her from the top of his round glasses, then he thrust his fork in a piece, raised it to his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.  
  
Transfiguration on Wednesday had seventh years trying to turn their desks into water fountains. While Harry had much success getting the desk to turn silver, grow taller, change shape and become round, the only problem was that there was no water to make it a fountain.  
  
Ron was having far more trouble. He could get the water but there was no fountain to speak of and the water simply came out of the desk's top and soaked the stone floor of the classroom.  
  
"Concentrate, Weasley, or you'll never be able to do it correctly," barked Professor McGonagall.  
  
When she turned his water-spewing desk back into a normal desk, Ron tried again but this time he had only managed to make his desk turn silver and let loose a few drops of water before the legs on the desk gave way and it broke down.  
  
"Hopeless," Ron muttered.  
  
Harry, having just as much trouble as Ron, scowled at his desk. Professor McGongall came back around to turn his desk back to normal and with an extremely hard whack with his wand, Harry screamed "VERIVERTO!" He wasn't the only one who had yelled at his desk, he got the idea from Seamus Finnigan whose desk had turned the color of rusted metal.  
  
To Harry's surprise, his desk became a better fountain than the one Hermione quickly turned her attention away from. There appeared to be just one problem.  
  
"You broke your wand, Harry," said Ron, looking at the piece that was still in Harry's hand, then at the piece that was lying on the floor.  
  
Raides, who had been drinking from Hermione's fountain occassionally, walked over to Harry and said, "Don't just stare at it, fix it."  
  
"How?" asked Harry, bewildered, and then, "Oh."  
  
Raides leapt up from where she stood, turning back into the staff and Harry caught her. The whole class (including Professor McGonagall), anxious as always to see the staff at work, stopped what they were doing as soon as the misty gray smoke appeared.  
  
Harry, who very well knew how powerful the staff was, didn't even need an incantation at this point. He just layed both pieces on top of Neville's desk (he hadn't had any luck) and, holding the staff upside down, touched both pieces with the scarlet crystal. A golden sparkle ran the length of the staff as a white glow emanated out from the crystal. Harry's wand glowed white for a quick second and, before their very eyes, was as good as new.  
  
"Wow," said Harry, dumbstruck as he picked up his wand and tested it out by making it shoot random colored sparks. "Shame I can't use the staff instead of my wand," he said, grinning.  
  
"Now, now, Potter," said Professor McGonagall, looking like she wanted a go with the staff, too, "you know very well that you'd have been able to do seventh year work in your first year with Raides."  
  
By the end of class, Harry managed to make his desk turn into a fountain but got no water. Yelling, he supposed, made him focus better but, seeing as how he didn't want to break his wand again, refrained. Ron's success had been similar except that his fountain was made out of wood and not brass but did have water. When turned back into a desk by Professor McGonagall, the soaked wood felt apart as soon as Ron put his book bag on it. Harry needed to use Raides to put it back together.  
  
As Harry tried to sneak out with Ron and Hermione, a voice behind him called, "Potter!"  
  
Raides walking next to him, Harry turned around, hoping that Professor McGonagall had forgotten about the detention he had been promised. Harry walked towards her desk and Raides stayed by the door.  
  
"You will be assigned the very difficult task of catching unicorns with Hagrid," she told him. Harry's eyebrows raised, wondering for what possible reason someone needed to catch unicorns. "Hagrid needs demiguises for one of his lessons," she continued matter-of-factly, "and as unicorns can help in the manner of finding them -- seeing as how their fur can turn them invisible, this is a necessity. After catching a unicorn or two, you will then attempt to catch a few demiguises. Meet him in front of his cabin at nine o'clock sharp on Friday. Friday because it can possibly take a few hours as unicorns are tricky to catch. You will obviously be taking Raides with you."  
  
Over dinner, Harry explained his seemingly not-so-hard detention to Ron, Hermione and everyone else who had been listening in, which included Ginny and Dennis Creevey. The only wish he had was that it didn't take place in the forbidden forest. He had been in there on several occasions, each time worse than the last, all of them being brushes with death. Professor Trelawney would have been proud.  
  
"Wow, Harry!" said Dennis, completely awed for some strange that Harry was assigned the "really cool" task of catching demiguises. "I bet you can see them! Even when they're invisible!"  
  
"Yeah," said Harry dryly, who was thinking of catching a demiguise for himself and knitting a new Invisibility Cloak.  
  
"She didn't tell you because, like the rest of us, you were supposed to know. Hagrid's just going make a potion of True Seeing," said Hermione.  
  
"That's all?" asked Harry.  
  
"We made them, what, last year?" Ron said.  
  
"Oh, now I remember," said Harry, also recalling how Snape had yelled at him, saying that Harry didn't help Malfoy; his potion had turned black when it was supposed to be silvery and somewhat transparent.  
  
Friday afternoon had come while Harry and the rest of the Gryffindor seventh years finally found out what haruspicy was: examining the dead remains of animals. Hermione had overheard Professor Trelawney speaking with Professor Vector about possibly combining lessons while waiting outside the staff room for Hagrid. Hermione said it was immediately shot down when Professor Trelawney went crystal gazing and didn't see it happening.  
  
One of the demiguises would go to seventh year classes. Unluckily, Gryffindors had the bodies first.  
  
Checking his golden watch and seeing that it was nine, Harry put down his phoenix-feather quill, put the cap on his bottle of ink, rolled up his Defense Against the Dark Arts essay ("Give a background on the history of the Dark art of possession and ways in which it had been abused in history").  
  
He felt his stomach give a funny jolt. For the life of him, Harry couldn't shake the feeling that, after going over it in his head while trying his very best -- and failing miserably -- to write his essay, he had possessed two bodies: Mrs. Norris, Mr. Filch's cat, last year and that Muggle boy this past summer. The tingling sensation all over, the way he passed out and then woke up... There was just no other explanation and he had no idea how to control it. What would happen if he did it in front of a crowd of wizards? And they recognized it for what it was immediately?  
  
Having the sudden urge to tell Ron and Hermione and then write to tell Cho and Sirius about it, he looked at his watch again and realized that Hagrid wouldn't be happy if he was late. Harry would definitely tell them as soon as he could. He left his wand with the rest of his things up in his dormitory -- he had every intention of using the Staff of Cybele instead of his pitiful wand while in the forest.  
  
Harry kicked Raides lightly, who had been sleeping under the table Harry sat at, and told her to follow him ("But I was having such a nice dream about slapping Professor Trelawney around a bit with my tail and telling her she's going to die, too").  
  
Sniggering, Harry said good-bye to Ron, Hermione and -- he didn't really know why but he did anyway -- Ginny too. Raides growled loudly as Peeves bobbed up and down in the enormous entrance hall and shot quickly out of sight when she finally barked at him. Upon Harry's arrival, Hagrid was already prepared, his crossbow armed and a quiver of arrows slung over his back.  
  
"There yeh are, Harry," he said, sticking a knife he had been sharpening into a pocket of his moleskin overcoat.  
  
"Why d'you need all that equipment?" Harry asked as he felt Raides rush past him and clamp her powerful jaws on a grotesque, one foot wide creature that had crawled out of the forest.  
  
"I reckon yeh don' want a repeat of yer past experiences in there, do yeh?" Hagrid asked, a smile evident behind his tangled beard.  
  
"So you're going to make True Seeing potions?" Harry asked, now at Hagrid's side and really wishing he didn't have to go back into the forest.  
  
"Yep," Hagrid replied, "and I'm goin' ter need yer help since I --" but he broke off, not feeling the need to say that he hadn't gotten to potions of True Seeing because he had been wrongly expelled in his third year at Hogwarts.  
  
"Don't worry," said Harry. "I can make it."  
  
Hagrid pointed to a stack of potion ingredients and a bronze-colored cauldron inside his cabin.  
  
"I have everything," he explained, "just don' have the unicorn hair for the potion. Had a good time gettin' me hands on one las' year for the potions as well. Hoped I wouldn't have ter to it again, took me a good five hours. But with yer help," Hagrid went on, beaming at Harry, "and Raides', it shouldn't take too long! Mind yeh, yeh're goin' ter want to have Raides at the ready. I came across another bloody balrog last year. Had ter get Dumbledore ter kill it. I don' know where they're comin' from an' I don' think I want ter know. Speaking of which, Raides, if yeh would mind... yeh know?" Hagrid finished, clearly suggesting Raides transform back into the staff.  
  
Raides acted like she hadn't even heard Hagrid's request.  
  
"You can listen to him, you know," Harry hissed at her, quietly enough that Hagrid wouldn't hear. "It's not like he wants me dead."  
  
Harry stuck out his hand and Raides leapt up into the air. He clutched his fist around her tightly when she hit his hand as the staff. Hagrid didn't know what to make of whatever Harry had said to Raides and looked indifferent.  
  
"Right," said Hagrid firmly, "let's go. C'mon, Fang!"  
  
Feeling strangely like Cho was around to walk into the forest with him, Harry set off at Hagrid's side, Fang trotting behind Hagrid. Harry's hand was firmly wrapped around the Staff of Cybele for comfort and the other desperately wanted to grab onto the Order of Merlin plaque.  
  
After a few minutes of walking, there was an indistinct growling noise a few feet from behind Harry. The bush in front of him quivered. Harry instinctly walked closer to Hagrid and tightened his grip around the staff which made her growl and so he loosened it.  
  
"Can you feel pain?" he asked before he knew what his mouth was doing. "I've kicked you several times now."  
  
"Nope," Raides replied quickly, the crystal having disappeared. "All I feel is pressure and I instinctively roar when I feel enough but only when I'm beind held."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Don't know. I guess it's just one of my features," she said, grinning.  
  
"Quiet," Hagrid whispered, "both of yeh." The crystal reappeared in the staff's mouth and they both fell silent. "We'll never be able ter catch a unicorn with yeh blabberin'. Harry, yeh should go off with Raides along the path. I'll go with Fang off of the path. I know this forest like the back o' me hand. An' don' worry, yeh'll be safe with Raides with yeh. If yeh see a unicorn, just stun it, Disapparate out back to me hut with it an' come back to where yeh was. I jus' need two. If yeh get one, catch Foresight with me an' I'll meet yeh back at the cabin so we can try an' get the second together. But we might not need it an' I hope not. Mind, I'll need ter do a bit more than stun since I ain't got me a staff," Hagrid said, grinning at it.  
  
Harry, feeling like Hagrid wasn't so right, unwillingly let Hagrid leave his side. He watched Hagrid go, feeling the shroud of darkness of the forest consume him. He blinked a few times and Hagrid was gone, his shadow sucked up by the many trees and bushes of the forbidden forest. While he somewhat agreed that with Raides with him, nothing, not even a nundu could stood a chance, he was still very scared as was evident by the hand now clutching the Order of Merlin plaque.  
  
"Calm yourself, Harry," Raides whispered but Harry felt nothing like staying calm. "You can cast Clades Ultimus with me if you need to."  
  
While Harry had forgotten completely about that, it only worked to let his hand release the plaque, his breath still coming noticeably faster than it had been up in Gryffindor Tower while trying to do his Defense Against the Dark Arts essay. He had been alone in the forest before and didn't die. At least this time he had the world's most powerful staff.  
  
But every bush rustling in the breeze, every screeching noise coming from the shadows of towering oaks and ancient pines and every time he heard some footsteps that he knew weren't his or Hagrid's, he stopped moving for a few seconds. Clearly, something was watching him, as was evident by the familiar pringling of the hairs on the back of his neck.  
  
This is one of your powers, Harry, he told himself, so you better use it.  
  
He heard a shrill cry whose owner definitely wasn't human but certainly didn't sound threatening... and there were galloping footsteps running away from him. Harry twirled the staff in his hand once and then, taking a deep breath, walked over to where he thought he saw a bush give another quiver.  
  
Putting the staff on the ground next to him, he kneeled down and saw a bit of shiny, silvery liquid on the ground. He bent closer to it, looking at it. It glistened in the sparse rays of moonlight that were streaking down from the treetops.  
  
Not exactly sure if he should do it, Harry poked it with his finger and put the tip of his finger to the tip of his tongue. Barely having enough to taste, he concluded that it tasted something like -- but he was glad that he didn't feel like he had just been poisoned. Harry wiped the rest of it on his cloak (making the spot on his cloak glisten in the sunlight, too), grabbed the staff and stood up.  
  
More galloping made him strain his ears; he knew that must have been either a centaur or a unicorn but centaurs' footsteps had a louder thump to them so, Harry concluded, it had to be a unicorn. The galloping was just ahead of him and he broke into a run.  
  
Whether it knew or not whether he was trying to catch it, it was running very fast and Harry tried his best to keep up with it. Headlong through branches, jumping over stumps in the ground and trying hard not to trip and fall on the hem of his own robes, Harry chased it, bringing him clear off the path of the forest. But he was losing it. The unicorn kept him going for longer than his legs wished to go and so he pointed Raides at his feet and snarled, "Faster!"  
  
A dark pinkish light bursted from the crystal.  
  
Like someone had just injected him with adrenaline, Harry's legs picked up their pace and he was gaining on something, something white with hooves. He had to have been moving at least five times faster than he was just a few seconds ago. He didn't really care; his heart gave a jolt, this was unicorn number one and it didn't take long at all. He pointed the staff at the tail of the unicorn, which was now clearly visible, and said "Stupefy!"  
  
A jet of red light issued from the crystal and before Harry knew where it went, it had zoomed past the unicorn and burned a hole through a thick oak tree in front of it, a large amount of saw dust spraying the ground. His mouth fell open and he stopped dead in his tracks as it did a u-turn, tearing through many more trees, and came back around, hitting the unicorn square between the eyes. There was just one problem: the holes in the trees weren't small and all of them were wobbling.  
  
Every tree that had been hit was threatening to fall down. Panicking, he pointed the staff at the nearest tree, concentrating on all of them and shouted "Don't fall!" because he didn't have any idea what else to say. It did exactly what he wanted, however.  
  
A golden glitter ran the length of the staff like usual and a hideous number of strands of white light snaked out from the crystal, turning and twisting every which way, lighting up the forest like daytime. They had all gone to touch every single tree that had been damaged but this all happened so fast that for all he knew, the strands of light could have very well already been there and he just revealed them.  
  
Upon getting hit, the saw dust around each of the trees crawled up the trunk and before his eyes, all of them looked like new again. When it was finished, the ends of the light strands released themselves from the crystal, beginning to vanish from the crystal to the tree it was touching. All of it was gone in the blink of an eye and it was once again very dark.  
  
Before going over to the unicorn, Harry stood stunned for a few moments, letting the reality of what a simple charm had just done to so many trees and the way he repaired them sink in. He never knew spells to tear right through other objects nor go so very fast. For all he's seen, if one collided with something, it either bursted or cracked a portion of it -- certainly never burning through it as if the spell were a laser beam. And the snakes of light were certainly cool to watch.  
  
Figuring it was all just to do with how powerful the staff was, he then hurried over to the stunned unicorn. It's eyes had rolled into the back of it's head and the spot where the spell had hit looked slightly burned. Harry put his hand with the Phoenix Bracelet on the spot with the burn mark to get rid of it. Once the bracelet had done it's work, he bent down next to the unicorn, put a hand on it and Disapparated with it into Hagrid's hut.  
  
It was empty of Hagrid, Fang and another unicorn.  
  
"Hagrid," Harry said to himself, eyes closed, having caught Foresight with Hagrid, who jumped a good foot in the air at hearing Harry's voice in his head.  
  
"Oh," said Hagrid sheepishly a few seconds later, realizing. "Yeh got the firs' unicorn?"  
  
"Yes. I'm at your hut with it. You wouldn't believe what happened, though. I went to stun it and the spell missed the unicorn but it tore right through several trees, did a u-turn and finally hit. A bunch of trees were about to fall over when I -- well, they're okay now. And the unicorn had a burn on it's face where the spell hit. This staff is amazing," said Harry, finishing with his mouth open in awe.  
  
He had never really used the staff to do something big -- that is if you discount reviving Sirius last year.  
  
"Harry!" Hagrid croaked. "I don' believe yeh caught one so fast! It even takes Professor Dumbledore an hour or two! Ah, but anyway, I'm comin' back. We can try ter make the potion with just one. Jus' need ter cut off some o' it's fur. Let me do that."  
  
Harry put Raides down and she transformed back into the great gold and scarlet lion.  
  
"So fast? What's he talking about? That was easy," said Harry blankly, sitting down on one of the enormous armchairs, and then, "Oh."  
  
Raides grinned at the unconscious unicorn laying on the floor by the fire.  
  
"Unicorn fur acts like a natural defense," said Raides, "and as you saw, they run fast. You casted a Haste Charm on yourself so you would go faster."  
  
Haste. That rang a bell. He had casted a -- a Haste Charm on himself to run faster...  
  
Wait a second, Harry then thought, hadn't I experienced something like that before? Where I'd been running a lot faster than I probably should have? I never really noticed it before...  
  
Raides looked at the odd expression on Harry's face.  
  
"What?" she asked curiously. "Did I say something?"  
  
"Oh," said Harry, thinking fast of something to say and hoping the expression on his face really was neutral. "Is that charm within ordinary wizarding level?"  
  
"I don't know," she replied, the shoulders of her front two legs rising in a shrug. "I lost most of my memory, remember?"  
  
"Be nice to find out why you were missing for several thousand years," said Harry, his mind really on trying to figure out why the Haste Charm he had used before was bothering him so much -- it was just one stupid charm!  
  
"Tell me about it."  
  
Calm yourself, Harry, you're going to bust a blood vessel, he told himself. You're getting older and you're getting better at it. So you can use a Haste Charm without a wand? Big deal.  
  
He knew it was bothering him a lot more than it should for some reason. Harry leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his hands folded and waiting impatiently for Hagrid's return. Feeling hot, he pulled his cloak off and threw it on the wooden floor next to the big armchair.  
  
Raides, clearly noticing that Harry was thinking about something, gave a sigh, said, "Go ahead, I won't tell anyone," stood up and walked outside. That was another thing bothering Harry: Raides was strangely loyal to him.  
  
Sitting there, he became aware that he was tired.  
  
About fifteen minutes of going over the charm again and again in his head ("It was just one charm, stop getting yourself worked up. It was nothing. Why are you even talking to yourself?"), Hagrid turned up at the front door. Hagrid rubbed his hands together in delight, looking at the unconscious unicorn.  
  
Harry quickly sat up straight so that Hagrid wouldn't notice that he'd been in deep thought, hoping he wouldn't get questioned about it.  
  
Hagrid then pulled the knife he'd been sharpening from the pocket of his moleskin overcoat, bent down over the unicorn and cut off a sizeable amount of it's hair, stuffing it into a cup. When the unicorn was completely bald, Hagrid sniffed.  
  
"It's so beau'iful," he sobbed. "I don' like ter have to capture them but if you don', those horns like ter gore yeh. Go on, Harry. Wake it up."  
  
Right on cue, Raides walked in, transforming into the staff just long enough for Harry to say, "Ennervate!" pointing the staff at the unicorn. The unicorn gave one long look at Raides, then positively fled out of the cabin and back to the forest.  
  
"Well, now yeh have all the ingredients, Harry. There's the cauldron," said Hagrid, pointing, "there's all the unicorn hair yeh'll need an' the rest o' it is over there in that open cupboard."  
  
Ten minutes later, Harry worked up a bubbling, frothing and smelly cauldron of a True Seeing potion on top of Hagrid's table. It was hovering slightly over a blue flame Harry had conjured with just his fingers. That didn't bother him as Hermione had learned that spell in her first year. He didn't forget about what he'd been going over about in his head -- it was just that he didn't want to mess the potion up and have to catch another unicorn. Hagrid's recipe called for using all of the unicorn hair so it was enough for three people (he needed some for his lesson on Monday) and would last ten hours. Harry found that, without Snape bearing his ugly hooked nose and greasy hair over his shoulder, making potions was much easier.  
  
"That's it," said Hagrid, nodding his head approvingly at the potion that had now turned silvery and somewhat transparent.  
  
"Almost done," said Harry, checking his golden watch.  
  
Harry cleaned of the stick he'd been using to stir with the rim of the cauldron and put it down on Hagrid's table. He took a seat in the armchair he was sitting in earlier and slumped into it, yawning, his arms splayed over the armrests and his legs stretched all the way out.  
  
"It's on'y a lit'le after ten, Harry," said Hagrid disbelievingly. "Yeh're not tired already, are yeh?"  
  
Harry couldn't stifle another yawn.  
  
"I had used a Haste Charm on myself to catch up with the unicorn. It drained me a bit," said Harry truthfully.  
  
"They can do that ter yeh," said Hagrid knowingly. "I'd say it was a shame that yeh don' have the Mark of Ancients anymore so yeh could... but... we all know how well that turned out ter be," he finished darkly.  
  
"I don't need the Mark of Ancients," said Harry, giving an involuntary shutter at the very thought. "I've got Raides." Raides was beaming at the side of Harry's head. "The potion should be ready in about five minutes. I reckon I can catch a demiguise faster than I got that unicorn so we'll be finished very soon. You sure you won't tell me what's going on besides the Triwizard Tournament?" Harry asked, hoping to catch Hagrid offguard and feeling the need to get his mind off everything else.  
  
Hagrid waved a disapproving finger at Harry, his beetle-black eyes aimed sharply at Harry's green ones. Harry desisted.  
  
"We need ter catch two," said Hagrid when the potion was finally ready. "I'll go with yeh since I reckon yeh're right about catchin' the demiguise faster."  
  
Harry wasn't too interested in catching anything at the moment but went back into the forest with Hagrid to get the demiguises.  
  
It only took a few minutes before spotting the first one ("THERE!" boomed Hagrid, making it Harry's turn to jump a foot in the air). Harry stunned it, this time making sure his aim was right the first time. They resembled graceful apes, sporting large, mournful black eyes and covered with silvery gray fur that unfortunately reminded Harry greatly of his dad's Invisibility Cloak.  
  
Hagrid slumped the first one over his shoulder and when they caught the second within the same hour, Disapparated back to Hagrid's hut.  
  
"Thanks a lot, Harry," Hagrid said for about the fifth time since they caught the first one. Harry had been pink around the ears since after the second time.  
  
"Don't mention it," Harry said. "No really, don't."  
  
Hagrid smiled broadly as he washed out his cauldron, putting away all the ingredients for the potion of True Seeing.  
  
"I guess yeh can go back ter the castle then," Hagrid told him. "That took on'y two hours! I'll see yeh tomorrow?"  
  
"Good-bye," said Harry and without a moment's hesitation, picked up his cloak, collected Raides and set off back to the castle.  
  
In the Gryffindor common room, Hermione and Ron were still up doing their Defense Against the Dark Arts essay.  
  
"Back so soon?" Hermione asked casually.  
  
"We had Raides," said Harry loftily, as Raides curled up by the fire, scaring away a first year.  
  
Harry went to his dormitory, collected his essay, quill and ink and went back downstairs. He sat at the same table as Ron and Hermione and threw his cloak on a chair behind him. Harry took one look at the blank piece of parchment in front of himself and sighed, leaning back in his chair.  
  
"Can I read one of yours?" he asked, rubbing his forehead, still feeling the effects of the Haste Charm.  
  
"Here," said Hermione, giving him her finished essay, "but don't you dare copy."  
  
Harry rolled his eyes. "I won't."  
  
"You look beat up," said Ron. "You were only gone two hours?"  
  
"I had used a Haste Charm with Raides to catch a stupid unicorn. Hagrid said they can leave you somewhat drained," Harry informed them and then he remembered that he had used Haste Charms before, and they had never made him tired and he fell silent.  
  
Recalling someone's advice, Harry tried simply putting it out of his mind for the time being. He went to read Hermione's essay...  
  
Bodily possession, a Dark art first recognized in early 400 B.C., had been abused many times since it's discovery. There had been accounts of entire armies being possessed by a hoarde of wizards that were used to destroy their own village, accounts of wizards possessing common animals to spy and a more recent abuse was that of Voldemort, who had been using it to stay alive in his, thirteen-year hibernation period, if you will. Not one good wizard has ever been known to harbor this ability except Albus Dumbledore, who sees the lack of moral uses for possession and refuses to use it. This is not to mention the controversiality factor tied to it.  
  
What real good use is there for such an ability? I, personally, would not want to be friends with someone who has used it.  
  
The primary use of possession is that of making the target do the caster's bidding. As a step up from the Imperius Curse, one of the Unforgiveables, the caster becomes the target which allows many things, which, in particular, include impersonation (a step up from Polyjuice Potion being it doesn't run out). In addition, if the target dies, the caster is simply thrown back to their own body.  
  
Slightly horrified, Harry skipped to the end of the essay.  
  
Percivus Potter, who lived five hundred years ago, had said it best. "Possession shall not taint the Potter family. We stand proud... we stand tall. We stand to keep the line of great Gryffindor proud and possession does naught but make one stand hunchbacked."  
  
Thoroughly horrified, Harry handed the essay back to Hermione.  
  
"Percivus Potter," he began uneasily, "was he... ?"  
  
Hermione smiled. "Yes. You're from the same family line as him. I found him and a bunch of other people named Potter (who I traced your family line down to) in a book I used to help me write my essay. It's amazing how many great wizards there were in your family tree, Harry, really."  
  
"Yeah," said Harry, feeling sick, "amazing."  
  
"But I wanted to ask you," Hermione went on, "how'd you get this unicorn blood on your cloak?"  
  
Harry blinked. "Unicorn blood?"  
  
"Yeah. That silvery-white stuff. You didn't --?"  
  
"No," said Harry quickly, feeling even more sick and feeling the heat rising in his face. So that's what it was... that he had actually tasted...  
  
"It's a good thing you wiped it on your cloak without tasting it!" Hermione said, as if the idea were ludicrous. "Because, you know, if you did, well, you remember what that centaur told you." -- and she made an impression of a centaur -- "'As soon as the blood touches your lips, you will have but a half-life, a cursed life.'" And she giggled.  
  
"Well, I'm going to bed, really very tired," Harry lied, wishing he could stop his stomach from feeling like someone had filled it with unicorn blood to the point of exploding and very aware of the beads of sweat breaking out over his forehead.  
  
As though someone had just hit play on a tape recorder, his conversation with the centaur came back to him.  
  
"If you're going to be cursed forever, death's better, isn't it?" Harry asked the centaur.  
  
"It is," the centaur agreed.  
  
Suddenly very hot, very dizzy, noticing his vision dimming and feeling like there was a hand squeezing his head from all sides, Harry fumbled around the desk, picking up his quill, still-blank parchment, ink bottle and his cloak and staggered up the spiral staircase to the top of Gryffindor Tower, to his dormitory, trying his best not to faint.  
  
He immediately sat upon the edge of his four-post bed, his hands clutched tightly around the edge of the mattress.  
  
"YOU STUPID IDIOT" he muttered soundlessly to himself, "WHY DID YOU DO THAT! Now what's going to happen to you? Are you going to grow fangs? Spit acid? Be forced to keep drinking it just to stay alive? Idiot. You're going to end up like Voldemort was."  
  
Harry took one deep breath and let out one great exhale then threw himself, hard, backward onto the bed, feeling his neck snap down as his back hit the mattress. His head, too far up to come in contact with it, didn't. This hurt a considerable amount but he didn't think he broke it -- he would probably have killed himself instantly.  
  
He covered his face with his hands, feeling the hot sweat from his fingertips on his forehead and feeling too angry with himself to express in words. The dizzy feeling wasn't relieved by much from lying down.  
  
Harry let out a soft groan of self-torment. What was going to happen? How much did it take? Was he already cursed? Is there any cure? Raides... yes, Raides would know the countercurse or at least let him perform it. But what if she knew he was cursed? Would he stop letting him use her? No... she didn't seem to care or even notice.  
  
Okay, calm down, he thought. Think sensibly. Nothing has happened yet. You only swallowed a very, very tiny bit. Something should have happened to you already, right? Right. But you're already feeling sick. Is that just the reality setting in or is that the curse?  
  
Should he tell anyone? Raides? Ron or Hermione? Sirius? Hagrid? Dumbledore?  
  
He had a feeling Hermione would start off by calling him stupid but he already figured that part out and didn't need reminding of the fact. She would probably then proceed to run to the library and find out the effects of drinking unicorn blood and tell him not to panic. But he was already well beyond panic.  
  
His head hanging off the edge of the four-post bed and his eyes closed, Harry put his hands on his stomach and felt it churn horribly. After a minute of trying to decide whether his stomach wanted to put his dinner on the floor, Harry then opened his eyes and found he was staring at his bedside cabinet. A familiar pen next to the Pensieve, a sort of thought jar that Dumbledore had given him last year, gave him an idea.  
  
"Sirius," Harry mumbled to himself. "If I don't tell Ron or Hermione, I had better tell someone."  
  
He sat up and flipped his legs around to the other side of the bed and the next second, he had jumped off the bed, seized the pen, grabbed a piece of parchment and wrote Dear Sirius. But what could he possibly write?  
  
Dear Sirius. Sorry to bother you but just a few hours ago I did something really dumb and swallowed a bit of unicorn blood. Nothing's happened yet but I expect I'll have to keep drinking it just to stay alive and have to kill myself and then get resurrected like Voldemort. Can you tell me what's really going to happen? Thanks, Harry.  
  
He stabbed himself repeatedly with the pen until there was as much pain the middle of his forehead as he figured his scar would cause when he woke up tomorrow after having the dream again. Harry had absolutely no idea who to write to, what to do, what to consult or what to think. Just about everyone, he figured, would begin by repeatedly calling him an idiot.  
  
"Get a grip on yourself," Harry thought, "you were supposed to get cursed from the same moment it entered your mouth and you're perfectly fine so there's got to be hope... Who the hell am I kidding," he groaned aloud, his face screwed up against tears and throwing himself back onto his four-post bed, his head hanging off the end again. "Stick me back in my bed at Privet Drive and let me live with the Dursleys where I can't hurt myself. I'm cursed forever. Just kill me."  
  
It was these last moments where he saw the last of consciousness. A violent rumble in the pit of his stomach crawled up his throat and out his mouth, sending bits his dinner up his nose but mostly onto the floor. 


	19. Cursed With Worry

Chapter 19: CURSED WITH WORRY  
  
"Poppy!" squealed a voice loudly, which Harry figured had woken him up.  
  
"Shh!" said another voice. "He's still out."  
  
"What do you suppose is wrong with him?"  
  
"Not sure, exactly. I told you I have one idea, but it's totally ridiculous."  
  
"No, I don't think he's that stupid, honestly. No Hogwarts student is."  
  
Harry noticed that he was awake but it was as if his brain was going in slow motion. He was able recognize who the owners of the voices were, drowsy as he was. But aside from being drowsy...  
  
"We'll have to see," said Madam Pomfrey.  
  
"When he wakes up you can ask him," suggested Professor McGonagall.  
  
"Honestly, Minerva, I would lie if I did that," said Madam Pomfrey matter-of-factly. "Goodness knows he's going to, he always does."  
  
"But do you really think so? I mean, unicorn blood, Poppy... What did Hagrid say?"  
  
"Says Potter took off with Raides and she won't say a word against him!" squealed Madam Pomfrey. "Won't even say what he did when Hagrid wasn't with them."  
  
There was a meaningful sigh.  
  
"Ah yes, I figured as much. Albus said he's been doing some research on that staff. It's got a kind of strict loyalty to it's owner, and seeing as... well there you are." Professor McGonagall seemed slightly unsettled about this as she said it.  
  
"Did he happen to find out why it was missing for so long?" Madam Pomfrey asked anxiously.  
  
"Unfortunately not. There was a mention that it was certainly kept away for a good reason but we'll have to see. Something about magic so forbidden that it shouldn't even be mentioned. Dangerous, indeed," said Professor McGonagall thoughtfully, "very dangerous."  
  
There was a very pregnant pause and then a door slammed open.  
  
"Poppy!" said a very scared Sirius. "Where? Where is he?"  
  
"O-o-over, there, Sirius," said Madam Pomfrey cautiously.  
  
"My God," said Sirius softly, and then... "HARRY!" he roared and Harry heard frantic footsteps coming closer.  
  
He felt hot breath over his face.  
  
"Harry -- Harry open your eyes, say something," said Sirius, putting a hand on Harry's forehead, trying to see if he had a fever.  
  
"Sirius, please!" said Madam Pomfrey urgently. "We're not yet sure if that's what it is. Why would he in the first place? I'm sure Potter knows."  
  
"I just hope he didn't..."  
  
Harry moved his head from side to side and it didn't seem like anyone noticed. It was a little stiff.  
  
"We -- can -- not -- be -- sure," said Madam Pomfrey firmly. "For all we know he had a head cold and threw up," she added dismissively. "Where's Raides?"  
  
"Up in his dormitory. But she won't listen to anyone but Harry, remember?"  
  
Harry's eyes opened all on their own. His glasses had been removed but he could make out the shape of Sirius who was standing next to him, looking at Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey, who were both at the door. He didn't feel sick anymore and no part of him was hurting but that didn't wash away the memory of how he had gotten himself there. He was still very undecided on whether he should tell, or whether he should keep it to himself and see if it would just go away -- and just going away on it's own seemed like a very large possibility. Besides, Madam Pomfrey couldn't tell and she usually knew what everything was, didn't she?  
  
"Can I just stay with him until he wakes up, Poppy?" Sirius asked.  
  
"Be my guest -- if he ever wakes up," she groaned. "Goodness knows he might have just tried to poison himself to end it and that's why he threw up. It's all very sad, I know and this is going to sound cold but there is simply nothing we can do. Very well. Come, Minerva, I want to show you something concerning this."  
  
Madam Pomfrey sighed. Footsteps faded away and Harry closed his eyes just as the door closed because they didn't want to stay open anymore; he was still feeling very tired. He supposed he would have slept longer had Professor McGonagall's voice not yelled in his ear. The sick feeling entered his stomach again and it churned horribly as Madam Pomfrey's words sank in. Harry felt Sirius bend down closer to him again and felt Sirius' hand on top of his head.  
  
"Harry --" he said in a soft, pleading voice, "Harry, please, please wake up..."  
  
He felt his hair being ruffled.  
  
"Do something, do anything. Open your eyes, move something, you can even just swallow..."  
  
Harry's heart couldn't bear to hear Sirius sound like this and so, finding out where his throat muscles were, he did the exact opposite and opened his eyes instead. Sirius was standing over him and for the split second where Harry had seen a deeply concerned face, it split into a smile, a tear leaking down from the left eye.  
  
"Harry -- Harry, please tell me that it wasn't -- that you didn't drink unicorn blood," said Sirius, now gripping Harry's hair for his own comfort.  
  
Staring into that face, those desperate eyes -- and seeing as how there didn't appear to be anything terribly wrong with him -- Harry couldn't bring himself to admit it. He would need a coverup story as it's not every day you're found on your bed, unconscious after having just thrown up... Perhaps he just did that because he was, well, sick with worry? Yes, that's it, Harry thought, it was just because I was so scared... I don't need anyone fussing over me any more, Voldemort is enough.  
  
But he would take care of business and... and ask Raides about it.  
  
"Unicorn blood?" Harry asked, hoping he sounded surprised. "No."  
  
"So -- so then you just weren't feeling well?" Sirius suggested, not sounding at all like he believed it. "Because -- I-if you did, you know, you're most likely feeling the worst you've ever felt in your life and you can -- can tell me," Sirius finished and then he swallowed, waiting for Harry to reply.  
  
The worst I've ever felt, Harry thought incredulously... I feel like an idiot but as far as my health goes, I'm just a little tired and stiff...  
  
He had a feeling Sirius only suggested that Harry had a cold because he honestly didn't want to believe that Harry had...  
  
Clearly, something wasn't right.  
  
"Why am I so drowsy?" said Harry, pulling his hands out from under the covers and stretching his neck. "I've been awake for a few minutes. How long have I been out, anyway?"  
  
Sirius stopped looking like Harry was on his deathbed, broke into a bigger smile, laughed nervously and pulled up a chair to sit on.  
  
"Ron screamed like a banshee when he saw you," said Sirius, leaning forward and grinning. "He then went to get Hermione while half the Gryffindor common room came up to see. The first thing anyone said was 'Get Madam Pomfrey.' They kept you here since last night, it's almost lunch time. Poppy forced a few potions down your throat to see if she couldn't find out why you had thrown up. An unfortunate side effect to one of them is drowsiness. It's not any better than her Pepper-Up Potion which I'm sure you know leaves people smoking at the ears," he went on and laughed nervously and shortly again.   
  
Harry was unfortunately reminded of the detention he had had for a week last year in the hospital wing with Professor Snape. He was making potions with, unknown to Harry for a while, the nearly-soulless Sirius covered up in the corner. But the thought was silly now and he couldn't help but smile and groan, "Don't remind me." He had accomplished what for so long Harry thought meant the end of Sirius: pull him from Azkaban and get his name cleared. It was a bumpy ride, but he did it...  
  
"Well... And I remember Albus Disapparating to where I was staying with Remus and saying, 'I think you will want to see this.' He had such a serious look on his face I thought someone died. When I got here and heard that Poppy had suggested the ridiculous idea that you drank unicorn blood -- Hermione said you had some on your robes -- you can imagine my panic. I guess it was dumb to even think you'd do that," Sirius said, still smiling and making Harry's heart plummet.  
  
"Yeah, dumb," said Harry while putting on a fake smile and feeling even worse.  
  
Sirius stood up, looking a lot better than he did just a few minutes ago which did nothing but further Harry's feeling of guilt. It looked like the unicorn blood didn't even affect him -- but how could that be? He was positively burning with the words "I did drink unicorn blood" on the tip of his tongue but he held back and the only reason he could come up with was that he didn't want anyone fussing over another huge mystery... Harry Potter, the boy who drank unicorn blood. As if the scar wasn't enough? And being a Parseltongue? And being able the control lightning? And possession...  
  
No, he simply didn't like the idea. At one point, he figured, he'd be forced to spill everything but maybe if he postponed it long enough, it would just go away. That seemed like the best thing to do for now and since he knew now that Raides wouldn't say a word to anyone about anything, he could safely tell her about everything and that at least put a little comfort back into him.  
  
Harry sat up and the drowsiness feeling left him.  
  
"I'm feeling just fine now," he said, telling the one-hundred-percent truth.  
  
Sirius, who just stopped looking like he had nearly attended Harry's funeral, patted Harry on the back and handed him his glasses. Harry put them on as Sirius pointed to the bedside cabinet. Sitting on it was a bunch of get-well cards, a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, an open Chocolate Frog box with a Wizard Card of Harry, Honeyduke's chocolate -- and a miniature unicorn, no doubt sent to him by Fred or George Weasley, Ron's elder twin brothers who owned a wizarding joke shop in Hogsmeade.  
  
"I'd like to stay," said Sirius, leaning back, "but there's nowhere for me here and I need to go back to Remus' place --"  
  
Harry frowned, his mind wandering from the previous subject.  
  
"Him and I are Severus' contact. He's been wandering around Britian with Voldemort since last June and Albus wants me to keep in touch with him. You don't want Voldemort coming here, do you?"  
  
Harry responded very quickly, shaking his head and gave an involuntary shudder on what he was about to say. "The Crucio from Thantanos last June was enough to last me a life time..."  
  
"So I've heard..." Sirius commented darkly. He opened his mouth to say something else, paused, closed it, exhaled and then said, "In any case, it looks like you're feeling better. Madam Pomfrey said it would be okay if you left. Ron and Hermione are anxious to know that you're okay."  
  
Harry knew that Madam Pomfrey had said no such thing -- she didn't even like releasing her patients until they begged -- but Harry appreciated it all the same.  
  
Sirius stood up from his chair as Harry got out of bed and spotted a change of Hogwarts robes. Madam Pomfrey came in in the middle of him getting dressed, ordering Harry to change back into pajamas, confirming his suspicion. She shoved a large piece of chocolate in front of him and, after much arguing with Sirius, agreed to let Harry go after he ate it in front of her. And, feeling no different after finishing the last of it, Harry set off for Gryffindor Tower, hoping for dear life no one would make a big deal out of him vomitting... but he had a feeling at least someone, someone by the name of Malfoy, would. Feeling distinctly angry at the thought of Malfoy for no apparent reason, he just hoped he wouldn't have to deal with Malfoy until later in the day or, at best, ever.  
  
"Harry!" shrieked Hermione as the portait hole swung open and she flung her arms around his neck. Harry stared at some space to the left of her left ear.  
  
"I'm fine," Harry told her as Ron's castle made out of Exploding Snap cards fell down, causing Craig Stone, a sixth year, James Griffith and Ginny to snigger uncontrollably.  
  
"Oh, shut up," said Ron bitterly but then he spotted Harry and forgot all about the burn marks on his fingers.  
  
A bunch of Gryffindors got up from their chairs to get a better look at Harry, including --  
  
"No, Dennis, and I'm perfectly okay," Harry said before Dennis got a chance to say --  
  
"Harry! Harry, did you really drink unicorn blood? And it didn't affect you?"  
  
"No," Harry lied, this time sure he sounded and looked convincing, "I didn't drink unicorn blood and I'm sure it would've affected me," he continued lying.  
  
He made his way to the table Hermione had been sitting at and she quickly asked him, "What made you so sick, then? C'mon Harry, I know you're --"  
  
"Ate something that didn't agree with me," said Harry shortly, "that's all."  
  
"And you were about to write to Sirius about something just before it happened, right?" Hermione said sharply and eyeing him just the same.  
  
She put down her Arithmancy notes and folded her hands, looking up at Harry and waiting for his answer. Harry raised both his eyebrows at this; he didn't know what to make of it.  
  
"What are you on about?"  
  
"I know you too well to just let this slip --"  
  
"Let what slip?" Harry asked innocently, getting generally annoyed (and his anger about Malfoy not helping any).  
  
"This!" Hermione exclaimed urgently.  
  
"What's this?" Harry retorted, very aware of -- but not caring much about -- the people staring at the pair of them.  
  
Hermione stood up so suddenly from her squashy armchair that she forgot all about Crookshanks on her lap who hit the ground with an irritable meow and stalked away, his bottle brush tail in the air, feeling undignified.  
  
"Oh would you look at that," said Harry, staring down at his golden wristwatch, infuriating Hermione, "time for lunch."  
  
And without even looking to see the angry expression Hermione was wearing, he followed Ron out through the portrait hole.  
  
"Ignore her," said Ron once the portrait hole closed (there was a loud tut just before it shut). "She's been telling the entire school that you drank unicorn blood and won't hear a word against it. She thinks that because Raides won't answer anyone, it's the truth."  
  
Ron had half the story right. Harry did drink unicorn blood but Raides won't answer to anyone but Harry... And contrary to Harry's belief, Malfoy didn't have a word to say to him as he strode past Malfoy on his way into the Great Hall. He just sort of stood there, a dumbstruck look on his face with Crabbe and Goyle next to him, looking just like they always did when a teacher asked them a question.  
  
"She made everyone believe I drank unicorn blood, didn't she?" said Harry angrily, taking a seat next to Ron at the Gryffindor table.  
  
Before Harry had even taken two bites, Hermione came waltzing in and sat nonchalantly in front of Harry and Ron.  
  
"Let's just drop it," she said pleasantly, "because we all know it's true," she muttered under her breath.  
  
"Yes, let's," Harry agreed fervently, noticing but not caring that Ron was eyeing him anxiously. "What," he then said, sticking a forkful of pork in his mouth and then talking with food in it, "so quick to side with her?" Ron quickly turned away from him. "I didn't drink any unicorn blood!" Harry shouted. "I would have been cursed! Do I look cursed to you?"  
  
"Oh, I don't know," said Hermione, reverting, to Harry's displeasure, to the bossy voice she had when he first met her, "because I'm thinking you did, and it's not affecting you, and you're scared, you don't know what to think, and that's why you're not telling us," she concluded.  
  
It was only when she finished speaking that Harry realized that the hand putting the fork to his mouth had stopped moving some time in the middle of her litte speech.  
  
Ron was now avoiding his eyes; it looked he did believe Hermione after all. Ginny, who had been secretly listening in, looked away, too. Seamus, Dean, Neville, Lavender, Parvati... all of them were listening in and all turned away just as quickly.  
  
Not wanting anyone to correctly interpret his arm stopping as a confirmation of Hermione's suspicion, he looked around at everyone and, in the silence of the Great Hall (broken only by Raides, who's entrance averted nobody's attention), put the food in his mouth and chewed as casually as possible.  
  
A bit of talk broke out at the Slytherin table which was, unfortunately for Harry, farthest from the Gryffindor table as could be. There was a very unnerving pause during which everyone who caught Harry's gaze went back to eating. And when he looked over at the Slytherin table, Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle and Dudley were whispering to one another.  
  
The next second, Harry found himself shouting, "Is there something interesting to look at?" without looking at anything but his mostly-full plate. "I'm not hungry," he then said, dropping his fork, standing up and swiftly exiting the Great Hall, uncomfortably aware of many eyes staring uncertainly after him.  
  
"D'you really think there's something wrong with Harry?" said Ron, goggling at the shadow of Harry as it disappeared from view.  
  
"Yes," said Hermione in a whisper, completely sure of it. "But the question is... what?" she asked, staring confused at Ron, her brow furrowed.  
  
Raides quickly left and caught up with Harry on the marble staircase.  
  
"You can tell me," she said, walking at his side. "I won't --"  
  
"I know that by now," Harry said, who kept on walking and not looking at Raides. "And it's just -- it bothers me a bit."  
  
"Bothers you? I was created to be loyal to the ancients and the ancients alone. Seeing as you're a descendent, I keep my silence for you."  
  
It had been a good year since Harry had been told the news he was a descendent of the ancients but the thought still terrified him. What other hidden magic was there besides the Mark of Ancients? How long was it going to take to show it? How much of it was Dark magic? He supposed that, knowing that the ancients had turned arrogant and became Dark wizards, the Staff of Cybele was no exception to this Dark magic, especially considering it kept secrets. He had no doubt that Raides, before her memory was wiped, had been keeping some pretty dark ones...  
  
"Hermione's right then, isn't she --" said Raides thoughtfully.  
  
"Yes," said Harry at once, now walking more quickly in his anxiousness.  
  
"Naturally, I'd love to give you the answer but seeing as... But you're not cursed, it seems, so there's nothing --"  
  
"Nothing to worry about?" Harry squealed incredulously, glancing at her for a moment and feeling distinctly sick again. The look painted on his face was one beyond distress and worry.  
  
He wondered for a bit if he was a descendent of Godric Gryffindor, too. He had been told so, but later told the person who gave him this bit of information hadn't been entirely truthful. The only thing he'd been told was true was the ancients part. The feeling eased him a little; Gryffindor wasn't likely to be a corrupt ancient -- if he was an ancient at all. The only scary part was what about the other Hogwarts founders? Was Slytherin one, too? That would make Voldemort an ancient and that was none too comforting...  
  
But he still wanted to know why the Staff of Cybele was hidden for so many years!  
  
"Password?" asked the Fat Lady as Harry approached.  
  
"Priscus Veneficus," Harry said.  
  
Ignoring Raides ("You are feeling all right, aren't you?") and Dennis ("Hiya, Harry!"), Harry climbed the spiral stairs to the circular dormitory atop Gryffindor Tower. Standing out on his bedside cabinet was the pen again. As a hand grabbed the Order of Merlin plaque, he sat up against the side of his four-poster. Grabbing his knees with his free arm, the plaque did nothing.  
  
"You sure you don't remember anything about it?" Harry asked Raides, who had jumped up on his bed.  
  
"Not a thing."  
  
Harry sighed, wondering what the entirety of Hogwarts would do had he admitted straight away that he drank unicorn blood. He was assured that Madam Pomfrey would have kept him in the hospital wing for an entire month, trying to find out whether he'd been cursed in the slightest bit. And Sirius... he looked ready to pass out from worry. He supposed Hermione knew ever since he threw up and that she figured out he was scared because he did that (at least now he was assured the only reason he'd done so was from fright). Ron wasn't taking sides, possibly not keen on upsetting Harry further (something he sure did appreciate).  
  
At the very least, he hadn't heard a word from Malfoy which Harry thought would have made him repeat the disaster that got him detention in the first place. Or perhaps Malfoy was so scared that Harry would grow foot-long fangs and poison him? Harry amused himself for a few moments with the image of chasing Malfoy, fangs bared, around the lake.  
  
Just then, something pecked the back of his head and a bunch of soft feathers brushed up against his cheek. He turned his head to see what it was and his nose hit the tail feathers of a snowy owl trying to turn around.  
  
"Hey, Hedwig," said Harry, trying to sound happy but failing. "Oh, great. A letter from Cho. She found out, too."  
  
"I would think someone would have told her," said Raides, grinning. "I mean, she is your girlfriend."  
  
Harry, not particularly wanting to hear about Cho's worry on top of everyone else's, opened it anyway and read aloud.  
  
Harry,  
  
Oh my God, I do hope you're all right. Hermione --  
  
Harry made a wince of annoyance.  
  
-- sent Hedwig with an explanation. Please, please write back and tell me it was just something that looked like unicorn blood because I'm losing my mind over here. I'd come and see you but my mom refuses to let me. She says if you really did, she doesn't want me to see you again, babbling something about "it's going to be painful since he won't be alive much longer." She also took the time to remind me that there's no point since you're going to kill yourself anyway.  
  
I really do want to know that you're okay and I want to see you! Harry, please!  
  
Love,  
  
Cho  
  
He stared at the last two lines for a few moments before being jogged back back to his senses by someone calling his name.  
  
"Harry?" Ron called.  
  
"What?" Harry snapped hotly, quickly looking up from Cho's letter.  
  
"Oh," said Ron in a small voice, "I was just -- just checking to see if you were okay."  
  
"Of course I'm okay," Harry replied, feeling anything but, still sitting up against the side of his bed, one hand still clutching the Order of Merlin plaque, the other still holding his knees against himself.  
  
"Dumbledore wants to see you," said Ron, feeling slightly uneasy. "Whenever you're ready, go up to his office. He said the password is -- well, he didn't exactly say but he said you'll know." Harry stared at Ron, a bemused expression on his face. "What d'you want from me?" Ron snapped quite suddenly. "Harry, you're acting very strange lately. I'm starting to believe Hermione."  
  
"Oh, as if you didn't believe her from the start?" Harry said accusingly, a little louder than he intended. His defiance was mounting from holding the plaque.  
  
"Sirius is still here," Ron shouted, his anger mounting, "and he doesn't know whether to lock you in your room or send you to a mental ward for counseling! Hermione convinced -- everyone -- that you did and you're just too scared to --"  
  
"Did she now?" said Harry suggestively, standing up and stuffing Cho's letter in his bedside cabinet.  
  
"Who was that from?" said Ron, noticing.  
  
"My mom," said Harry, annoyed at Ron's nosiness. He then said the first thing that came to his mind. "She wants to know if I'm coming home for dinner."  
  
"Are you having roast unicorn?"  
  
"No, my dad thinks it tastes awful," said Harry loftily. "But you should taste my mom's beef casserole, it's the best. Good-bye," he added scathingly.  
  
Ron turned on his heel and swept down the spiral staircase leaving Harry with a sharp change of mood -- he wished he hadn't blown up on Ron. Feeling horrible, he pulled out Cho's letter, sat up against the bed again (Hedwig flew off his shoulder and took off through the window) and re-read parts of it.  
  
I'd come and see you but my mom refuses to let me.  
  
I really do want to know that you're okay and I want to see you! Harry, please!  
  
Love,  
  
Cho  
  
He finished with one hand holding the letter and the other curled up in a worried and guilty fist, covering his mouth. His heart shriveled up on the notion that she seemed just as worried as Sirius had been. To make matters worse for Cho, she wasn't allowed to go to Hogwarts to see Harry so she could see for herself. He smiled weakly at the letter, forgetting for a moment about Ron and remembering what Cho looked like. His heart half-way unshriveled and what was left pushed out some of the coldness he had had while yelling at Ron. He really wanted to see her too, but wouldn't be able to until at least Christmas.  
  
Okay Harry, get a grip on yourself again, he told himself. You can go and tell Ron you're sorry later but you better not keep Dumbledore waiting. So you drank unicorn blood and you weren't cursed, big deal. You should have died when you were a year old but you didn't. No one knows what your scar is and the unicorn blood thing isn't any more of a big mystery as that is. You'll get through it, you always have. And take your hand off the stupid plaque. 


	20. The Explicatrix

Chapter 20: THE EXPLICATRIX  
  
With that, Harry stood up; straightened his robes; pushed his glasses up; said, "Okay," softly to himself; took a deep, calming breath and properly hid Cho's letter.  
  
"All right, Raides," he said, "I think I'm feeling better. C'mon then, I'm going to Dumbledore."  
  
Harry set off down the spiral staircase and to his dismay, was met with a bunch of hushed whispers.  
  
"I think he's finally lost it."  
  
"Aaron told me that curse started by making him really angry."  
  
"D'you think he's safe?"  
  
"No. Honestly, I wouldn't go near him."  
  
His hand unfortunately sliding up to the plaque, Harry tried to shut them out and, without looking over at Ron's and Hermione's worried faces, pushed open the portrait hole and left the Gryffindor common room. Staring at the ugly gargoyle blocking entry the grand staircase leading into Dumbledore's office on the seventh floor, Harry didn't have any miraculous ideas for the password. Instead, he resorted to Raides. Staff in hand, Harry pointed it at the gargoyle. He wasn't surprised to watch it immediately spring to life upon being hit with white light and step aside, allowing Harry entrance to the spiral staircase. Rising like an escalator, in seconds, before him was a grand oak door. Using the brass door knocker, a voice inside said, "Come in, Harry, and please tell Raides to go back to Gryffindor Tower."  
  
Raides grunted moodily and set off on her own after looking up at Harry.  
  
Alone, Harry pushed open the great oak door and stepped inside Dumbledore's office. It was easily the grandest office of all at Hogwarts. Circular in shape, Dumbledore's desk sat in the middle and his phoenix, Fawkes, was resting upon a golden perch just behind the door. All around the office were pictures of previous headmasters of Hogwarts. Dumbledore himself was sitting at his desk, holding a peculiar object indeed.  
  
At first glance, Harry thought it was a slightly transparent blue orb but upon closer inspection, saw that it was really a crystal ball. It was a very small one, barely four inches in diameter. There was swirly silver smoke inside of it that looked like a mist of sorts and there were black runes written all around the outside of it. Dumbledore was staring intently at it.  
  
"Sit down, Harry," he said, very distracted by whatever he was seeing in the ball.  
  
There was a minute's silence, filled with nothing but Fawkes cleaning his feathers and Harry shifting in his seat. Dumbledore stared and stared until Harry felt the need to speak.  
  
"Professor," he said, "er -- did you want to speak with me?"  
  
Dumbledore blinked, made a very strained face then covered the strange blue crystal ball with a cloth.  
  
"In all my years..." he said in a very offhand voice. "And I thought the Book of Memories was a strange item. Strange, indeed."  
  
"What is that?"  
  
"That?" asked Dumbledore, looking at Harry and putting the orb into a cabinet next to his Pensieve. "That is known as Cybele's Orb, known by her as an Explicatrix. In my research of her staff, which she quite obviously named Raides, I've found that she was quite the adept witch. Not only did she manage to give the staff the ability to freely shape-shift, that staff was made before the discovery of the Mark of Ancients and is an order of magnitude more powerful. The ability of the ancients, even the weakest ones, quite easily rivals that of myself and Lord Voldemort," he said matter-of-factly. "That is, naturally, providing they were using their mark. Of course, to them it wasn't referred to the Mark of Ancients since they were the ones who discovered it. That name was only gotten through time. To them, it was called the Nota Vetustum."  
  
Harry sat, listening intently.  
  
"It was Cybele herself, sometimes referred to as The Mother, who initially discovered it. They quite worshipped her, brought her gifts and when she died, continued it all by sacrificing themselves in her name. Frankly, she didn't care for the attention and she'd rather not have it but she had a following anyway. Does this remind you of anyone, Harry?" Dumbledore asked, smiling. Harry couldn't think of anyone in particular.  
  
"People back in those times were, if you will, silly," Dumbledore went on. "Every branch of magic that included sacrifice as part of it's study eventually killed all of it's followers off, all except one particular line of ancients. While many of the ancients had turned arrogant and began to abuse the Nota Vetustum, the Charm that enhanced their ability, Cybele's family line stayed on the side of good. They watched in utter horror as their brethren fell to the first ever record of the Dark side."  
  
"It was the ancients who started this good-side Dark-side stuff?"  
  
"Yes, Harry," said Dumbledore, gazing at him over the top of his half-moon spectacles. "Cybele tried, as a last ditch effort, to eradicate Raides. No one dared look for the staff while she was alive, lest she kill them herself. She did live a good two hundred years, her longevity nurtured by her research into increasing one's life span but her death signified nothing but a frantic search to find the supposedly broken staff. There were nothing but writings of what she had done with it. The world over was searched for it until someone who should not have found it did find it. His name is unknown but he forced the family line of Cybele into hiding, using the power of the staff to it's full extent. While she did make it that only ancients could use it, by this time there were ancients evil enough where it didn't make a difference.  
  
"He was quite like Lord Voldemort, terrifying the people so much that his name was probably long forgotten by the time the book I found any reference of him was written. A Clades Ultimus here, a Light of Faith there -- yes," he added, noticing Harry's mouth creep open at hearing he killed Dark wizards too. Light of Faith was a special spell that only killed Dark wizards. "He was just as ruthless to his own followers if they betrayed him. Quite funny, though, as sometimes the Light of Faith failed because the wizard had receeded to the side of good before he found them. This was when the Cruciatus Curse was developed, too. Light of Faith did nothing but torture good wizards and they didn't think it was strong enough.  
  
"He, unfortunately, lived for three hundred years but for the last seventy fifty years of his life he was nothing more than skin and bone, barely able to do anything. This Dark wizard was desperate for something to restore him to power and, frankly, life. And as you can easily guess, this was the first record of the start of the branch of Dark magic dealing with immortality. Such was also the start of ancient alchemy's study of the Philosopher's Stone. Who would ever want to live seventy five years when you cannot even walk is beyond me."  
  
"Seventy five years and he couldn't even walk?" Harry asked quietly, making sure he heard right. "That's insane! Who would want that?"  
  
"Oh, yes," Dumbledore went on and Harry was eager to hear more. "Purely sickened by this wizard's followers and their reign, it mentions that Cybele herself and some other wizard (or wizards; it's not clear) locked and bound the staff to a book so it would never get out."  
  
"Never get out?" asked Harry slowly. "That almost sounds like it was trying to escape, like it's full of dark magic? But, she -- she didn't -- come back to life?"  
  
"The book that had this information in it was none too reliable," said Dumbledore, shaking his aged head. He then heaved a great sigh, mumbling something about the publisher of the book constantly making errors. "Changing people's names, incorrect dates, referring to Raides as a plain, wooden stick, refering to Cybele herself as the darkest witch ever to exist, even going so far to say as this took place thirty thousand years ago, fifty thousand years ago, ten thousand and simply one thousand.  
  
"In any case, this other wizard eradicated Raides' memory just before he sealed her inside the book so if she ever was found, the magic would be long lost. He only wanted to prevent that Dark wizard from abusing the magic it held... of which he had been. There is no mention of what it was, only that it is magic that no witch or wizard should be using -- period," said Dumbledore in a very serious voice but continuing much more casually. "Only the other wizard knew how to unlock it and retrieve the staff; Cybele herself had been dead almost four hundred years. The book itself was thrown away and not seen for nearly nine thousand. How you were able to find it is beyond the dreams of many of us. Whether you found it using ancient magic accidently, or it wanted you to find it..."  
  
"I don't even know," said Harry, vaguely recalling the time he spent two years ago as a floating spirit and trying not to think about why a book would want him to find it. "It was -- one minute I was floating in the forbidden forest here and then I was in some dark place with what somehow I knew was the Book of Memories."  
  
"Seeing as how you found the staff as a badger," said Dumbledore softly and suddenly grinning broadly, "and not a lion... and seeing as how Cybele's family name was Gryffindor" -- and then Harry's mouth fell open -- "clearly, Cybele did not simply rise from the dead."  
  
"I -- I'm a descendent of -- of Cybele?" said Harry, astounded. "But, how? I mean, she lived so long ago!"  
  
"Cybele Gryffindor. Had she touched the staff last, it would have been a lion like it had changed into when you touched it. I believe this was done to determine the type of wizard wielding the staff. She is thought to have been born ten thousand years ago.  
  
"There really is no explanation. Cybele was many, many times more powerful than Gryffindor who alone was quite stronger than myself. Godric was the only notable descendent of the Gryffindor line since Cybele, having done something of note in nine thousand years since her staff. I daresay, we have another notable member of the Gryffindor line among us and he is sitting right in front of me," said Dumbledore, still grinning broadly.  
  
Harry felt his cheeks turn red.  
  
"Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked Dumbledore, wanting to get off the subject of Raides now that it had come back around to him.  
  
"On the contrary, Harry, I feel it is important to tell you all that I have found out," Dumbledore told Harry calmly. "There was a sort of purging done shortly after the staff had been hidden, ripping the Nota Vetustum out of any wizard or witch who had abused it and their body subjected to a Clades Ultimus. This was mainly used as a scare tactic but it clearly violated Cybele's original intent and slowly but surely, still more of the ancients died out. Those that were tricky to remove the mark from were put under a permanent Imperius -- the spell having been perfected -- and killed. It took the good part of one millenium -- one thousand years -- to do this and it left only the Gryffindors and very few other families who had had the Nota Vetustum. The Gryffindors themselves removed it from each other and the only person with it left agreed to sacrifice himself so no one would ever be able to use it again. The staff gone and the last person with Nota Vetustum killed, they felt they had put Cybele's tormented spirit to rest."  
  
"How did the mark survive if it was removed from everyone? And why couldn't they just do to each other what you did for me two years ago? No one needed to die to remove it from me..."  
  
"Someone somewhere along the line had to have kept it but hid it very well. This, as much as I hate to admit, had to have been a dark wizard." Harry's spirits dulled slightly on the note that somewhere along the line, there had been a very dark wizard in his family tree. He slouched in his chair. "But please, do not let it bother you. He did not make himself known and so his intents could not have been all bad."  
  
"There's more questions than answers to this stuff, isn't there?"  
  
"It would appear so, yes," said Dumbledore heavily. "But one thing is certain. You, Harry, are not yourself lately. Is there something you wish to make known?"  
  
Harry's insides gave a guilty squirm.  
  
"Yes," he said, resolving to tell Dumbledore the truth. "I did drink unicorn blood -- but only a very small tiny bit," he added hastily, noticing Dumbledore's mouth opening.  
  
"And it has not affected you," said Dumbledore in a soft, airy voice, more to himself than to Harry.  
  
He leaned back in his chair and gave Harry a look-over, from the top of his jet black, untidy hair and the lightning scar on his forehead, down to the black shoes on his feet.  
  
"I spent the last hour trying to figure it out and all I know for sure is that if I try to make any sense out of it, it's going to drive me insane," Harry told Dumbledore.  
  
"Indeed," said Dumbledore airily again, his crooked nose pointed at an angle so as to make Harry feel like he did something wrong.  
  
Harry blinked.  
  
"Er -- d'you know why?"  
  
"Why it will drive you insane?" Dumbledore asked stupidly, his mind so obviously lost in thought about how Harry could drink unicorn blood and not get cursed.  
  
Harry stared.  
  
"Why it didn't do anything to me."  
  
"No, Harry, I do not," said Dumbledore very fast in a slightly shaky voice and as he spoke, he changed from leaning back in his chair to learning forward, putting his ancient arms on his desk.  
  
Harry slumped back in his chair. He was hoping to be able to return to Gryffindor Tower with things at least slightly close to normal but with Dumbledore stumped, it just wasn't going to happen. He informed Dumbledore of this, to which Dumbledore just told him to return to Gryffindor Tower anyway and repeat to Raides what he told Harry.  
  
Disgruntled, Harry made his way back to Gryffindor Tower, passing by an extremely happy Argus Filch ("Good day to you, Potter!" he squeaked in such an ecstaticly happy voice that Harry stared at him as he passed).  
  
"What's with Mr. Filch?" Harry asked Ron as the Fat Lady swung open to admit him.  
  
"Raides came in, telling us about how she just warned Peeves that he better behave as long as she's in the castle or she's going to ask you if you won't mind binding him inside a crystal ball and then shattering it, causing Peeves to simply stop existing," Ron informed Harry casually which left Harry speechless. "Fuming isn't the word for it and I don't think there is one. She's upstairs."  
  
"Bind him in a crystal ball and then shatter it?" Harry repeated to himself, wondering if he heard correctly. He was happy to note that Ron appeared to have forgotten about earlier.  
  
"And yes," Ron assured him. "When Hermione asked if that was possible, she told Hermione that you will be willing to try it out on her first. Now Hermione's scared stiff in the library. I think you ought to go talk to her because I don't think she's ever going to want to look at your or Raides ever again."  
  
"Wow," said Harry, shocked. "I'll talk to her, then."  
  
"Which 'her?'"  
  
"Both."  
  
Harry sat down at an empty armchair, many of which had freed up upon his entrance to the common room.  
  
"Raides," Harry said in his head, knowing Raides could hear him.  
  
"What," he heard her voice snap at him. "Oh, sorry. It's just that stupid poltergeist," she went on angrily, "what's-his-name --"  
  
"Peeves."  
  
"-- snuck up on me and screamed. I growled so loud that Filch came running and he was just in time to hear me yelling at Peeves. You might have seen him, Filch is now as happy as a pig in mud because Peeves went white as a... well... and then bolted in the opposite direction. The Bloody Baron came by with The Gray Lady and they applauded me."  
  
Forgetting he was in a room full of people and talking to Raides in his head, Harry bursted out laughing to many stares. Luckily, Raides entered the room not a moment later and took her usual seat in front of the fire, resembling a large, glamorous ornament.  
  
"Peeves knows I can do it," she spat. "It's ancient magic and absolutely nothing you will have trouble with. You can use one of the crystal orbs you used for Divination. Just bind him inside it and then drop it so it shatters. He will have been attached to it and when it shatters, his spirit breaks apart and it's like his body never left any remnants."  
  
"I don't really want to -- to kill Peeves," said Harry, feeling a great internal struggle that was personified exactly by the words provided by a Gryffindor first year who spoke next.  
  
"He's a menace, Harry!" she shouted and there were nods of agreement from the two girls sitting next to her. "Even IF it's nice to see him play tricks on the teachers, especially Mr. Filch, he's made me late for Herbology three times and I've gotten detention once already!"  
  
Harry looked around at several faces that were looking in his direction and he was torn between seriously considering it and having known Peeves so long. Either way, the fact would remain -- person or poltergeist -- he would be killing someone and that didn't smooth over too well. He was at least pleased to see that, in light of Peeves, they all forgot about what happened earlier.  
  
"Er -- I have a lot to tell you all if you want to hear it," said Harry, desperately hoping to distract everyone from Peeves. "But first, Raides, I need to get Hermione and I don't really want to walk all the way to the library?"  
  
Raides raised her golden head in Harry's direction and a second later he was catching Foresight with Hermione, telling her Raides wasn't going to kill her and that she needed to come back to Gryffindor Tower. Hermione hestiantly agreed and, in the middle of Raides' diatribe over why Peeves should never have been allowed to stay, came in through the portrait hole, giving Raides a dirty look.  
  
"Apologize," Harry ordered Raides and, ironically not able to refuse, she did so.  
  
Hermione was all smiles.  
  
By the time Harry had finished explaining everything Dumbledore had told him -- about Cybele, the staff, the Dark wizard much like Voldemort terrorizing the ancients, the Nota Vetustum, him being a descendent of Cybele herself -- he then realized Dumbledore forgot to talk about the Explicatrix. Not terribly interested, the urge to go ask Dumbledore about it left as quickly as it came.  
  
On the other hand, far apart from being simply shocked, the entirety of the common room was staring unblinkingly at Harry like he just drank a goblet full of unicorn blood in front of them -- Ron, Hermione and Ginny included. Dennis, Harry had a sick feeling, would start chasing Harry around Hogwarts with a camera like his late older brother, Colin.  
  
"So that explains why I'm just so good," said Raides haughtily and wearing such a cheeky grin Harry thought it should be illegal. Luckily, she had Peeves completely driven from her mind.  
  
It was that that finally made Harry turned redder than the armchair he was sitting on, his arms on the big rests and his hands clutching it like he felt like doing to the Order of Merlin plaque. The act of spilling his ancestral history felt strangely like talking about his parents but that didn't stop the feeling that he would be getting even more unwanted attention. He did fail to mention the Dark wizard in his family tree and would be informing Ron and Hermione of that later.  
  
"But who had the Nota Vetus -- oh forget it, I'm calling it the Mark of Ancients -- so it managed to survive so many years?" Hermioned asked. "I mean, you were the only one to show it in, what, eight thousand years? That was when nobody was really referred to as an ancient anymore since they all had it removed and the last one killed himself, you said."  
  
Harry didn't answer and hoped no one else caught the gap in his story.  
  
"Wow," breathed Dennis in a voice full of awe.  
  
Craig Stone and James Griffith, two people who usually treated Harry as any other person, were very out of their usual selves and were gaping with their mouths open. Harry was plucking the seams of the armrests' ends nervously with the tips of his fingers.  
  
"But you're still going to get rid of Peeves for us, won't you?" asked a third year, the only one that wasn't in awe.  
  
"No," said Harry flatly.  
  
"I knew it!" shouted Hermione suddenly, standing up from her chair and making everyone's eyes turn to her. "How else could you have pulled Godric Gryffindor's blade out of the Sorting Hat?" she said as if that was the answer to everything, referring to when Harry had killed the basilisk.  
  
"Oh, shut up," Harry said, closing his eyes lazily as everyone's eyes turned back to him. "And can you lot stop staring at me? It's giving me the creeps."  
  
The first five to return to what they were doing prior to Harry's entry were Ron, Hermione, Ginny, James and Craig. It took quite a while for many others to stop raking Harry's hairline for the scar as if they were just meeting him for the first time and Harry didn't think Dennis would ever stop. Not able to find any peace trying to play chess with Ron, for people kept staring at him in set intervals, Harry beckoned Ron and Hermione up the staircase. Raides followed them, growling at Dennis who tried to follow her.  
  
"There's something I didn't tell you," Harry began and Hermione instinctively smirked and made a short laugh in the back of her throat as if to say "I knew it."  
  
"Cough it up," she said, taking a seat next to Ron on his four-poster, across from Harry who sat on his own.  
  
"There was one Dark wizard who they didn't catch and remove it from," Harry explained. "It was him who brought it down to, well, me."  
  
"They didn't catch him?" Ron asked incredulously. "But how? I don't get it?"  
  
"It just went and turned itself off or something?" Hermioned asked next.  
  
"Your guesses are just as good as mine," said Harry, not even bothering to figure it out.  
  
"This is just too weird!" waving his hand and shaking his head in frustration. "Some Dark wizard keeps the thing, hides from the others perfectly, they never find him and no one since then has used it."  
  
"Yep," said Harry. "That's what Dumbledore read."  
  
"But he could have just lived as an outcast and moved to another country or something," Hermione suggested.  
  
"Maybe," said Ron, "yeah..."  
  
"I'm not letting it bother me, though," said Harry truthfully, who had just noticed Hermione staring pointedly at him. "He was only one, and with Cybele and Godric in my family tree..."  
  
"Right," said Hermione.  
  
"Wait a minute, didn't someone once say that the mark can just disappear and return later?" said Ron, his stroke of brilliance surprising himself and even Hermione.  
  
"That's it!" said Hermione at once. "That's how he did it! They didn't even know he had it and it stayed in him and he passed it down, generation to generation, until it showed up in Harry!"  
  
And she clapped her hands together happily. Ron was overjoyed at himself.  
  
"Now that that's settled," said Harry, glad he didn't have to fall asleep with that mystery hanging over his head, "what do I do about everyone staring at me again?"  
  
Although he knew the attention would annoy him greatly later, at the moment Harry couldn't help but find it funny that, every so often, there was another reason for people to gape and stare and look for the lightning-shaped scar under his untidy black hair.  
  
But the point was easily seen and Harry only grinned more broadly as Ron and Hermione exchanged dark looks. 


	21. The Demiguise

Chapter 21: THE DEMIGUISE  
  
Harry woke up the next morning feeling strangely fine. He dreaded walking into the Great Hall for breakfast, the feeling that the story had spread throughout the school already sitting firmly in his stomach.  
  
But that aside, when Ron's hand went dangerously close to the drawer in Harry's bedside cabinet which contained Cho's letter, Harry cleared his throat suspiciously loudly so as to distract Ron and said "Fancy giving me my cloak on your bed?" which he put there behind Ron's back earlier.  
  
"You okay?" Ron asked him as he handed Harry the cloak.  
  
"Yeah," said Harry, trying to stop himself from blushing, "fine."  
  
Although it wasn't a personal letter, he just didn't want anyone to stumble upon and read it. No, it was a personal letter, Harry argued with himself after a few seconds. "Oh stop being so sensitive about it," he mouthed soundlessly to himself as he descended to spiral staircase amidst some eyes watching him pass. "While you're at it, stop talking to yourself, you never used to before."  
  
The more he did it, the more irritable with himself he became. And at that he stopped dead because he realized he hadn't ever talked to himself since... since Cho.  
  
"C'mon, Raides!" he shouted up the stairs, suddenly remembering he had forgotten all about her.  
  
"Cat got your tongue?" she said innocently, coming down the stairs behind him. "Or should I say, girl got your brain?"  
  
"Shut up."  
  
"I knew you had her letter in that drawer. It was so obvious, Harry."  
  
He scowled at her.  
  
Luckily, the story hadn't spread yet but by the end of breakfast, even Dudley was catching random stares at Harry.  
  
"Suppose I ought to get used to it," said Harry, looking at Dudley who was still sitting at the Slytherin table as he had been for a while. "Do you two still think we messed up the Sorting Hat?" he asked, lowering his voice. "Or is Dudley the first Gryffindor ever to not like Gryffindors? Let alone the first person admitted to Hogwarts who doesn't mingle with people from his own house..."  
  
Harry watched as Malfoy smacked Dudley on the back of the head to get his attention and didn't hear Ron and Hermione saying "yes."  
  
Over the next two days, odd as it was, Harry was happy to see Dumbledore draw the H and P with his wand randomly again when people passed him in the corridors. He had stopped ever since the incident with the unicorn blood and doing it again meant things were back to normal... or at least, as normal as they ever were.  
  
As Dumbledore promised, Harry was pulled over at the end of a Paladism class on Tuesday after Hagrid's primer on demiguises earlier that afternoon. Raides was standing next to Harry, sucking on a dead vole Hedwig had brought her to apparently show friendship. Rather, Hedwig was afraid she would get eaten after finding herself under Raides' paw after an incident involving Ron's owl, Pigwidgeon and Hermione's cat, Crookshanks.  
  
Dumbledore explained that Harry just needed to follow what he did to prevent anyone with the Mark of Ancients from Apparating or Disapparating on school grounds. This was part of ancient magic, he told Harry, and that, obviously, with the Staff of Cybele, he would have no problems casting the charm.  
  
And so with the entirety of Hogwarts on the front grounds of the school just in case something went horribly wrong, one swoop of Raides sent a ribbon of rainbow-colored light zooming towards the castle, covering every inch of it until it trickled down to the bottom of the castle. It snaked along the ground, covering every visible inch of that until the sight looked like nothing short of a strange dream, standing on a rainbow. At the same time, a short burst of rainbow-colored smoke had escaped Dumbledore's wand and expanded to cover all of the area the rainbow light from the staff had covered. This, Dumbledore explained, was the original charm. And then, at the exact same time, both the smoke and the light on the ground vanished instantly.  
  
"Go on," said Dumbledore to Harry, "try to Disapparate."  
  
Standing the staff on it's bottom, the full seven feet tall, Harry closed his eyes and tried for ten minutes, all the while Raides telling him in his head that it wasn't going to happen.  
  
"Excellent," said Dumbledore as Peeves came flying out the castle, looking sulky and forlorn that nothing had blown up.  
  
"It's a shame you won't be able to use that staff in the Triwizard Tournament!" said Ron excitedly in the Great Hall a few minutes later.  
  
"It's a shame I won't be in the Triwizard Tournament!" said Harry, every word dripping with sarcasm.  
  
"Are you still on about that, Ron?" said Hermione sharply.  
  
"I'm not," said Harry, with one look at Ron through the top of his round glasses, munching happily on his dinner.  
  
Wednesday evening's Charms class did bring a bit of cheer to Harry as tiny little Professor Flitwick explained what they would be learning next. In a word --  
  
"Sewing."  
  
"Sewing?" said Dean Thomas blankly.  
  
Harry had a sudden vision of them knitting a large Gryffindor flag for when Beauxbatons and Durmstrang arrive. And then he thought of the demiguises and his dad's cloak and wondered if there was any possibility that he couldn't be given his dad's cloak back if he promised to learn Sewing Charms to their fullest extent. This idea sat firmly lodged in the back of his head as Professor Flitwick demonstrated with his own wand and a rug that Raides had ripped up in chasing after Peeves earlier that morning.  
  
"Yes, Mr. Thomas!" squeaked Professor Flitwick as the great claw marks filled in before their very eyes as two great big sewing needles worked furiously with some yarn. The white yarn mysteriously changed to the right color as it was set in place.  
  
"D'you think my idea will work?" Harry asked after Ron and Hermione had been quite successful in making their needles work, though rather slowly, in knitting a miniature Gryffindor flag. He hadn't told them he wasn't trying very hard...  
  
Harry had been silently pondering whether he should show that he can do it -- or not try at all and see if he can't convince Professor Flitwick to go for his idea. He shared it with Raides but she was up in his dormitory, absolutely no help.  
  
"You really having trouble with this? I don't know, Harry," said Hermione cautiously, her needles crashing down as Neville's collided with them ("Sorry!"). "You aren't doing very well to begin with..."  
  
At first hesitant, he decided to come clean -- with them, at least.  
  
"I'm not trying at all. I figure -- I figure if he sees that I'm having trouble with it he might be a little more sympathetic," he said quickly, sounding very much like he didn't want to say it. "And maybe I can make a deal with him about knitting my dad's cloak on my own if I agree to learn this Charm really well."  
  
Hermione's face went from being concerned to being horrified faster than it took Ron to tut. It wasn't helping that he already felt guilty about the idea and he informed Hermione of this.  
  
"You better feel guilty," she whispered fiercely. "That's a horribly deceptive plan, Harry! Fooling with his emotions just to -- just to get something out of him!"  
  
"Don't repeat it because you may just knock the idea out of me," Harry told her.  
  
"He wants the thing back, Hermione," said Ron sympathetically.  
  
"And you!" she snapped. "Taking his side. Just don't ask me for help."  
  
Harry quickly became severely annoyed.  
  
"I didn't ask for your help," he snapped back, grabbing the ball of yarn from his desk and, to his great surprise, squeezing it so hard it became thinner than the wand in his other hand.  
  
Hermione desisted, now looking slightly alarmed -- the balls of yarn were thick and hard to squeeze. This also gave Harry cause for alarm. How many times before had he casted the Strength Charm on himself without realizing it?  
  
He put the ball of yarn in his lap so no one else could see and jabbed it with his wand repeatedly, trying to force it back into a ball but after ten minutes, desisted, feeling even angrier.  
  
Parvati Patil shrieked with joy five minutes later as her needles and yarn finally rose into the air and started knitting away.  
  
"Excellent!" shrieked Professor Flitwick as well. "Two points for Gryffindor!"  
  
"Hermione..." said Ron flatly, staring pointedly at her, Harry trying furiously again to get his stick of yarn back to a ball.  
  
"Nothing," she said quickly.  
  
Although Harry wasn't really listening, he knew Ron had said something only because Hermione was always the first one to get a charm to work. Ron then shook his head. Harry didn't care, being too busy in trying to make ball of yarn a ball again. He succumbed to casting the Strength Charm on himself and squeezed it back into a ball as best he could, Professor Flitwick staring curiously at him.  
  
It was then that Harry noticed that Hermione, sitting next to him, Ron on her other side, was staring at him, too.  
  
"Yes?" he said hotly, not looking at her and proceeding to lazily point his wand at his needles to make it look like he couldn't do it. His mind now set on the plan.  
  
"It's just... you're acting very strange lately," she said in a quiet voice, scared that Harry would explode on her and explode he did.  
  
"I'm acting like normal," he shouted loudly, making a few heads turn, making Neville jump, wondering what possessed him to say it like that and causing Hermione to clutch Ron's arm.  
  
"M-mr. Potter?" said Professor Flitwick, staring curiously at Harry who had just torn the ball in two pieces. "Would you like to excuse yourself?"  
  
Harry didn't speak as he packed up his bag, walked out of the classroom, out of the Charms corridor and headed towards Gryffinor Tower. If he wasn't so absorbed in trying to figure out why he had exploded twice now he would have noticed that two more pairs of footsteps were following him and they caught up to him at the Fat Lady.  
  
"Priscus Veneficus," said Harry as Ron and Hermione both called out, "Harry!"  
  
Harry walked through the portrait hole and threw his bag on a table by the fire, sitting down and hearing, but ignoring, Ron and Hermione.  
  
Ron and Hermione sat opposite him, talking to each other in quiet, terse mutters and Harry couldn't make a word of it out. Still feeling hot all over -- and for no apparent reason which annoyed him even more -- he supposed they were going to ask him about what just happened. Then they both leaned forward in their seats and looked very seriously at Harry.  
  
"All right, Harry," said Ron, putting his hands out in front of him and trying to get a handle on the situation, "we know something is up and, well, we both think there's something you're not telling us --"  
  
"There's nothing I'm not telling you!" Harry shouted incredulously, turning his head to face the fire and wishing Sirius' head was poking out of it. He had once spoken to Sirius like this when Sirius was so far away and just wanted to do it again, even if he had no clue what he was going to talk about. "I've been telling you two everything ever since Sirius --" but he stopped talking abruptly because the thought of what had happened last year to Sirius was still painful.  
  
"You didn't tell us about the unicorn --"  
  
"I had a very good reason not to," Harry snapped hotly, only half believing it. It hadn't affected him and, at least right now, he didn't think it wasn't a good idea telling everyone. His insides did give a guilty squirm, the thought about him being able to possess people still being a secret.  
  
"Harry --"  
  
"I'm not hearing another word of this," Harry told her sharply, his head bursting with trying to find out why himself and then, making him slouch so much in the chair his bottom was in danger of falling off, he dropped the angry attitude so far it slipped into sadness. There was no point in trying to hide it, but he covered his face with one hand anyway and clutched the Order of Merlin plaque with the other, holding it over his heart, looking a mess. It did nothing.  
  
He could hear Ron and Hermione talking in terse mutters again, still unable to make out a word. Hermione then stood up, crossed the room, removed the plaque from Harry's fingers and started to say something but Harry interrupted her.  
  
"Professor Flitwick didn't mention my dad's cloak did he?" he asked, already knowing the answer.  
  
"No," said Hermione in a soft whisper. "And I honestly don't think anyone's any more keen on giving it back to you now, especially after that. Now come on. Dinner."  
  
"Forget about it, Harry," said Ron reassuringly as they exited through the portrait hole. "You'll get the cloak back but you'll have to wait until the end of the year."  
  
"Ron, you're not being very sensitive!" Hermione snapped. "You'd want it back, too!"  
  
"Good, you two fight. That always makes me feel better," said Harry, not knowing whether it was true or not.  
  
"I know he wants it back but you heard what Professor Flitwick said," Ron said irritably, walking on Harry's other side so he didn't have to stand next to Hermione as they got up to leave.  
  
"And what did Professor Flitwick say?" Harry asked sarcastically curious.  
  
"He said that he's going to speak with Professor --"  
  
But Harry didn't get to hear which professor because Hermione kicked Ron in the back of the knee, making him lose his balance. Ron grabbed tightly on Harry's shoulder, making the pair of them to fall down. Hermione uttered an "I'm sorry," and pulled Harry to his feet, not giving a second thought to Ron.  
  
Harry marched quietly in front of the two of them, the sad spell being exchanged for the angry one again and his fists clenched. He would have dearly liked to hit both of them but the thought of who they would go to next -- Dumbledore -- stopped him.  
  
All he wanted was his dad's cloak back.  
  
Or did he?  
  
Several girls oohed and aahed at the demiguises in the next Care of Magical Creatures class, their big, mournful black eyes staring at each student, looking scared, their silver fur still unfortunately reminding Harry of his dad's cloak.  
  
"Finally the big git is preparing proper lessons!" drawled a cold voice right behind Harry.  
  
Hermione turned slightly red and thankfully, only the three of them knew that Hagrid hadn't been preparing the lessons on his own at all. Harry lazily turned around to see Crabbe and Goyle with Pansy Parkinson and her band of Slytherin girls all laughing stupidly at Malfoy's remark.  
  
"Malfoy why don't you just go join your dad with a band of Death Eaters, betray Voldemort and then get yourself killed, will you, pretty please?" said Harry, annoyed. "What, you don't like hearing Voldemort's name either?" and they all flinch again at the name.  
  
"Voldemort!" said Ron, laughing.  
  
"Voldemort is just a name," said Hermione, smiling innocently.  
  
"Vol -- de -- mort! Vol -- de -- mort!!" Ron chanted, causing Hagrid to finally tell him to stop it.  
  
"You think you're so popular, Potter," said Malfoy in a cold whisper next to Harry's ear.  
  
"That would be because I am," said Harry coolly, suddenly feeling a strong urge to grab the plaque dangling from his neck.  
  
"He's gonna kill you, Potter," Malfoy went on with an air of vindictive pleasure, his pale, pointed face curled into a malevolent smile, doing nothing more than irritating Harry. "You're only fooling yourself if you think you're gonna live! You know yours is coming, just like your parents did."  
  
Malfoy would probably have continued speaking except he didn't get much of a chance to because Harry, in a split second's thinking, pulled his wand out and had Malfoy up in the air. His wand was pointed at Malfoy's throat where Malfoy was clutching it. Harry wasn't strangling him but the red sparks emitting from the wand did much more than just catch Hagrid's attention.  
  
"Harry!" he said so loudly that a few people jumped, shocked that Harry was doing what he was doing.  
  
Ron, Hermione, Crabbe, Goyle and everyone else had backed away from Harry. Raides instinctively put a smile on her face and stood at his side, ready to turn into the Staff of Cybele in a split second. Malfoy looked down at Raides, seeing the grin she was wearing and then at Harry. As scary as a seven foot lion smiling at your peril was, Malfoy was still more scared of the look of burning hatred on Harry's face.  
  
"Put him down!" Hagrid shouted disbelievingly.  
  
Harry put his wand down and Malfoy fell three feet to the floor in a crumpled heap of robes. But the dangers were't exactly over yet as Hagrid turned back to the demiguises and saw that one of the leashes tied to a tree was limp on the ground.  
  
"What is it, Hagrid?" said Hermione as Hagrid sputtered incoherently. She also wanted a good excuse to step farther away from Harry.  
  
"Now don' panic!" Hagrid shouted to a very alarmed class of seventh year Slytherins and Gryffindors. "They eat plants, not humans! You three, come in here an' help?" he added in an undertone to Harry, Ron and Hermione, pointing inside his cabin.  
  
"It's right over there!" Harry shouted, pointing his wand (which was still spewing sparks of fury) at what was clearly a demiguise in his pumpkin patch, curled up in fright on the dirt, it's hands over it's eyes.  
  
Ron, Hermione and Hagrid all turned their heads to look in the direction that Harry was pointing. They stared blankly for a few seconds before all turning, perfectly chorused, back to Harry.  
  
"Harry," began Hermione, in a tone clearly showing that she now thought Harry had gone mad, "there's nothing there," she said slowly.  
  
"What are you talking about," said Harry irritably, jabbing his finger at the demiguise. It did look strange, though. The fur was very silver, almost transparent, like it was...  
  
"It's invisible, Harry," Ron said, "and unless you're telling me you can see things that are invisible then you aren't --" but Ron stopped dead and it hit them all like Malfoy falling on top of them.  
  
It was invisible. And Harry could see it.  
  
He pointed his wand at himself and shouted, "Incitarem!"  
  
His legs moving much faster, Harry sprinted towards the demiguise (it gave a bad effort at out-running him), grabbed it by the hand and poked it with the Staff of Cybele, forcing the demiguise to make itself visible again. He dragged it over to Hagrid, who was too busy in gaping from the demiguise in Harry's hand to Harry himself, much like the rest of the class, to do much of anything.  
  
"Well what do you want," said Harry irritably. "You have it back, now tie it up."  
  
"You can --" Hermione began weakly, looking and pointing between Harry and the demiguise, "-- can see -- things that are invisible?"  
  
"Brilliant," said Harry simply, feeling, yet again, all eyes staring at him and still more annoyed. "I can see things that are invisible, I'm an ancient, there's a scar on my forehead, I can control lightning. Did I tell you that I know when people are watching me?" He teetered on the edge of saying he could possess people, but seeing as how he hadn't even told Ron or Hermione about this, he didn't dare tell anyone else. He compromised and instead, said "D'you want me to sing the national anthem at next year's Fire Quidditch game?"  
  
Harry refrained from walking out of that class, too, and endured people still catching glimpses at him. He occassionally jabbed a demiguise with the Staff of Cybele every time they went invisible while leashed down. The only thing he said until after dinner was during it and that was, "This has not been my week."  
  
"Sure it hasn't," said Hermione loftily.  
  
They weren't talking to Harry about what just happened and, in fact, weren't talking to him at all. After this one remark, Hermione went back to talking with Ron about how Hagrid wanted to bring in another set of Blast-Ended Skrewts, a horrible project they had to endure during their fourth year at Hogwarts, tending to horrible creatures that, as Malfoy (for once) perfectly put it, "could burn, sting, and bite all at once." Harry caught himself before he made a remark agreeing with Ron that he just might kill the Blast-Ended Skrewts before the first lesson with them again was up.  
  
When dinner was over and Ron was now discussing with Hermione about how disgusting haruspicy was going to be on the way to Gryffindor Tower, Harry bursted out with something, interrupting Ron, after going over it again and again in his head. They aren't going to think any less of you," he told himself before he was going to say it, just tell them and maybe you'll stop feeling bad because nothing else is sure helping.  
  
"There's still one thing I haven't told you, because, well, I think you'll know why when I do," he said aloud, making Ron and Hermione stop walking rather abruptly. He was several feet in front of them before he had noticed they stopped.  
  
Ron blinked. "What is it?" he asked blankly.  
  
"You'll like this one," growled Raides, grinning.  
  
"You told her but you won't tell us?" said Hermione, giving Harry a look so reminiscent of Professor McGonagall that he turned to Raides and gave her his own impression of Professor McGonagall.  
  
"Not telling you here," said Harry, looking ahead of him again. "Someplace quiet."  
  
"Our dormitory?" Ron suggested.  
  
"Wherever."  
  
Harry wasn't at all pleased as they followed a few footsteps behind him all the way, even up the spiral staircase to the top of Gryffindor Tower.  
  
"You remember Mr. Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris last year? How she moved and I have no idea how I did it?" Harry said, sitting on his four-poster and looking between the equally distressed faces of Ron and Hermione. "And I told you about that Muggle that nearly killed Cho and how he just walked away?"  
  
Neither Ron nor Hermione said anything.  
  
"Well now I know what happened," he said, leaning forward, his hands folded and his fingers moving uncomfortably. "I can possess people."  
  
He didn't know what kind of reaction to expect but was at least happy to see they didn't run screaming. Ron stood up very suddenly, walked to the foot of his bed and spun around once, his hands on his hips. Hermione did the same thing except she had one hand on her hip, one hand holding her forehead.  
  
"You're joking," she said flatly as she did this.  
  
"Nope," said Harry assuredly, laying flat on his back and slapping his upper legs with his hands, "I'm not. I possessed both of them. I was cringing after I read your essay on it, Hermione, and that's why I haven't told anyone." He was looking up, absorbed in staring at a fly bobbing up and down off the ceiling that just entered from the open window.  
  
"I can imagine!" said Hermione in a very high pitched, panicky voice.  
  
Ron, though he looked very anxious and worried at first, tried -- and succeeded -- at calming himself down a bit.  
  
"W-well what's going to happen if we tell someone else?" he suggested calmly, sticking a hand out at Harry.  
  
"I don't know," said Harry darkly. "Run screaming and get a pack of dementors to arrest me? So I don't wake up for three months and then when I'm released, I find out that I was supposed to have lost my wizard powers but didn't? And then I'm famous all over again?"  
  
"Do not -- say that," said Hermione severely. "That is not funny and you know it."  
  
"I know it's not funny," Harry informed her, "but that's probably what's going to happen. So you're not going to tell anyone," he added, "right?"  
  
"Who else are you going to tell?" said Ron, doing another nervous spin.  
  
Harry's mind immediately landed on two people. Well, four, really, but two of them were no longer alive.  
  
"Sirius, Cho --" but he stopped himself before he got close to mentioning the other two. "I just have a nasty feeling that when I tell Cho she's going to -- to get scared --"  
  
Ron dropped his arms and made an impatient noise in the back of his throat as Hermione said, "Give me a break, Harry," just as impatiently.  
  
"She told you she loves you!" Ron shouted.  
  
"You two spent half the summer together -- getting to know each other very well, I'm sure -- and you think, knowing very well that she loves you, that she's going to be bothered by that when I'm DAMN sure she knows you wouldn't use it for anything bad? Remember when she walked out on you, Harry," Hermione went on severely, Ron goggling at the back of her head at this point, "because not many people can be made to feel so guilty by someone else that their guilt gets the better of them. She didn't walk out because she was scared, she walked out because the feeling of guilt was just too much. You spilled your heart out to her and she just couldn't bring herself to be as honest as you were. Tell me, Harry, tell me again that you think she's going to respond the way you think she's going to."  
  
As she was speaking, she was pointing a finger angrily at Harry and her bushy, brown hair shook with anger every time she swung the finger up and down.  
  
"That one is on fire," said Raides, breaking the silence in which Hermione was staring down Harry like he had done the worst thing in the world that there was to do.  
  
"Shut up," Harry snapped.  
  
Raides, not looking remotely offended, changed into the Staff of Cybele all on her own and went lifeless. The tail wasn't wagging, the fur wasn't moving at all except for the flutter from the wind and the scarlet crystal was in the lion's mouth. Ron curiously went over to her.  
  
"What's she done?" he asked, peering down at the staff and scratching his flaming red hair.  
  
"Disabled, or something. She basically dead until I grab her again," Harry explained. "Forget about her, she's another story, making me feel -- it's like she wants me to go ahead and do Dark magic."  
  
"Yes, forget about her," said Hermione, not dropping her tone. "Back to Cho."  
  
"What are we so uptight about?" said Ron. "I mean, no one's going to think you'd use it for anything bad. It's you!"  
  
"Ron, you remember how everyone was when the school found out Harry was a Parselmouth?" said Hermione.  
  
"Yeah, they weren't exactly nice," Harry reminded him.  
  
"Why should anyone take this any better? Harry, you write a letter to both Cho and Sirius," she said, facing him.  
  
"All right," said Harry, completely unaware that Ron was looking around in his bedside cabinet and had discovered Cho's previous letter.  
  
"Wow," said Ron. "Cho's mom didn't even want her to come see you?"  
  
"What?" The blood then drained from Harry's face. "Gimme that -- " He reached over and snatched the letter from Ron's hands. "I'll write them both a letter then," said Harry quickly. "I'm fine now, thanks. Good-bye."  
  
Hermione let out a giggle that made Harry turn so white it looked like he had been sprayed with chaulk. She did leave, taking Ron, who was also laughing, with her. Harry was feeling better, the anger that he had had at Malfoy no longer with him, but not as good as he hoped he would feel after sending letters to both Sirius and Cho. He was going to bite the bullet and tell Cho everything he was going to tell Sirius, trusting to the fact that Hermione was right and she wasn't going to react at all like he still had a nasty feeling she was going to.  
  
As soon as Ron and Hermione were gone, Harry picked up that familiar pen on his bedside cabinet, took out some rolls of parchment from inside it and, without really knowing what he was going to write, started to.  
  
Dear Sirius,  
  
You better sit down because if you don't you're going to fall down. I don't know how to word it so i'll just say it flat out: I can possess people. I found out when I stopped that Muggle from killing Cho. I also did it last year with Mrs. Norris (long story).  
  
I've only told Ron and Hermione and I'm going to tell Cho. The reaction that I got from Hogwarts finding out I'm a Parselmouth wasn't exactly warming so I think it's best if I just keep my mouth shut. I wonder where else I've used it without knowing it?  
  
But I'm fine now.  
  
Harry  
  
He gave it the once-over, hesitantly added "mostly" at the end of the second to last line, was then satisfied with it and went to go write Cho's. His brain wasn't working very well after that first one, however, so he mostly just copied it.  
  
Dear Cho,  
  
Sit down because you're going to fall down after reading this. I've already told Ron and Hermione and Sirius is getting a letter like this, too.  
  
You know why that Muggle just walked away? He wasn't feeling a stroke of kindness, I possessed him. That's why I fell down, that's why he just walked away. I know I've done it at least once before and I don't even want to know how many times before that I've done it without knowing.  
  
But don't worry about me (too much). I'm fine.  
  
Harry  
  
He wasn't exactly fine as there was still the reaction he would get from Cho eating him up. But nevertheless...  
  
"Hedwig," he called, turning to his snowy owl who was perched at the foot of his bed, her foot already sticking out, ready for him to tie the letters to. "Send Sirius his first, then go to Cho. I don't know, I just don't want him reading her reply, either."  
  
He felt himself go red again when he walked Hedwig to the window. With an affectionate nip on his hand, a spread of her beautiful wings and a soft hoot, Hedwig soared out into the open afternoon sky, coloring her white feathers a dull, bluish gray.  
  
He leaned against the wall next to the window, his hands pressed to the wall and the side of his face up against it, watching her go. A great weight in his stomach kept disappearing and reappearing each time she rose up and down in the air. All of it was worry over how Cho would react and whether, by some strange reason, Sirius already knew. That was the only thing that would make Harry feel better at this point as the plaque in his hand wasn't helping. Sirius, being Sirius, always knew what to say and what to do. 


	22. Shplowmp?

Chapter 22: SHPLOWMP?  
  
The whole of Hogwarts had been waiting for September to finally end and October to finally arrive. Aside from people giving strange glances at Harry ever since he had exploded in Charms and Care of Magical Creatures, life had returned to normal. Sure, Harry had tasted unicorn blood, an act which would have sent many wizards into such a horrible state of being that they would have killed themself, but, what the hey, Harry was not like many wizards.  
  
"Yes, Miss Granger," said Professor Binns during History of Magic when the subject of unicorn blood's discovery had come up, "and no, Mr. Potter."  
  
"Oh so he did finally learn our names," said Ron quietly.  
  
"Yes, we are still unbeknownst to many of the effects of it and no, we are fully sure it has not affected you. Rest assured, this will be another thing that goes in textbooks about you. And now all we need is to hear that you can possess people and you're going in a few more textbooks as well," he added irritably as Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged nervous glances.  
  
Harry was extremely happy that Malfoy had been skirting him in the corridors and even avoiding him in lessons they had together.  
  
"Look at him, he walks like you're going to attack him any second," said Ron after a Potions class where Malfoy exited the class room as fast as possible, beckoning Crabbe and Goyle to him.  
  
"He better," said Harry, staring at the back of Malfoy's blonde head as he walked quickly away.  
  
"Why? What'd he do?"  
  
"You would have done it, too, if you were me," said Harry, getting angry at the mere thought of it again. "He said I know I'm going to die... just like my parents did."  
  
Harry and Ron kept walking but Hermione didn't.  
  
"He didn't," said Ron, his mouth agape.  
  
"That sick little --" Hermione began.  
  
"I scared the pants off him," said Harry, still staring at the back of Malfoy's head. "And he knows by now not to take it as an empty threat. Just how many times do I have to threaten him, though, before he stops?"  
  
Hermione eventually got control of her legs and started walking again.  
  
"Well, I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it but you shouldn't keep doing that," she said.  
  
"Whatever," said Harry dismissively. "He struts like he doesn't have to be afraid of anyone and only because his dad works for Voldemort and him, he's just a sick murderer." Harry's fists slowly clenched as he said this.  
  
"Calm yourself, Harry," said Ron hastily, "or you're going to bust a blood vessel."  
  
"It's a little hard when you just want someone to di -- disappear," said Harry, his teeth half gritted. He had almost said "die" but didn't want Ron and Hermione fussing over the bad attitude he'd been having lately any more.  
  
Harry started to walk a little more quickly but Ron grasped the back of his robes before he'd gone two paces and gave him a meaningful look.  
  
On their way to the Great Hall from Potions, they found they couldn't even get into the vast entrance hall owing to a large number of students chattering and a number of heads pointed in the direction of the marble staircase.  
  
"The signs there again, isn't it," said Harry.  
  
"Yep," said Ron, the tallest of the three of them, standing tiptoe to get a better look at it.  
  
TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT  
  
THE GUESTS FROM BEAUXBATONS AND DUMRSTRANG  
  
WILL BE ARRIVING ON THE 30TH OF OCTOBER AT  
  
6 O'CLOCK. LESSONS WILL END HALF AN HOUR  
  
EARLY. ALL STUDENTS ARE TO RETURN THEIR BAGS  
  
AND BOOKS TO THEIR DORMITORIES AND ASSEMBLE  
  
OUTSIDE IN FRONT OF THE CASTLE TO GREET OUR  
  
GUESTS BEFORE THE WELCOMING FEAST. DO NOTE  
  
THAT THERE WILL BE AN ANNOUNCEMENT OTHER  
  
THAN THAT CONCERNING THE TRIWIZARD  
  
TOURNAMENT.  
  
"Excellent!" cried Ron. "They're going to tell us that other stupid thing they're holding besides the tournament!"  
  
As Ron finished, Dumbledore appeared behind him and drew an H over his head and a P over Harry's head but then he drew an L over Hermione's head and confused them all. As he waded through the students, he continued by drawing an M in the air, followed by an O, an S, another P and then a W. He then smiled broadly, his eyes sparkling behind his half-moon spectacles and disappeared into the Great Hall.  
  
"What the hell has an H, two Ps, an S, L, M, O and W in it? Shplomwp?" Ron asked, his face screwed up in thought.  
  
"Somehow I don't think so," said Harry. "But we'll find out in about a week and a half. Wonder who's going to go for the tournament?"  
  
"Fred and George will have my head if I don't enter my name in," said Ron. "And mom doesn't want me bothering."  
  
"I should think not," said Hermione and for a brief moment, Harry thought she was Mrs. Weasley. "And you're not going to convince Harry to enter if he doesn't want to, either."  
  
Harry smiled pleasantly at the two of them.  
  
"C'mon," he said, "I'm starving."  
  
The castle, as it had been three years ago when the Triwizard Tournament was also coming to Hogwarts, was undergoing an extra thorough cleaning and causing Mr. Filch to snap even more than usual.  
  
"You're dragging mud all over the entrance hall, Potter!" he barked at Harry when they had come from Herbology. Seventh years had been working with mud-loving plants in greenhouse five and there was just no way to enter the castle without dragging mounds of mud into it.  
  
But Harry solved the problem with Raides.  
  
The suits of armor that lined the corridors were now sparkling and Peeves had been trying his absolute hardest to drive Mr. Filch up a wall. He would have succeeded one afternoon if Raides hadn't been walking by and growled very loudly at Peeves. The Bloody Baron was getting upset at Raides only because he was usually the only one that could control Peeves and his job was being taken from him rather forcibly. Raides, however, couldn't be bothered by such petty nonsense.  
  
"You're going to remove him, Harry," she said, "or I'm going to... something."  
  
"Really?" groaned Harry flatly, unconvinced. "You can't do any magic unless I do it and you know it," he said, much to Raides' displeasure.  
  
An article turned up in the Daily Prophet about Harry. Hermione had subscribed to the newspaper several years ago and they all found it very useful. Before she had subscribed, the Slytherins had been helping them do so, all with very embarassing suject matter...  
  
HARRY POTTER: ONE STRANGE WIZARD  
  
It's been reported, though rather hard to believe, that young Potter, now in his seventh and final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in an accident not revealed to the press (let alone his fellow classmates), had swallowed an undetermined amount of unicorn blood.  
  
As many of us know, such an act will curse the drinker forever, with no counter-curse known and the effects so bad, the drinker usually ends up killing themself anyway. But Potter, being one of the biggest mysteries of the age, had not been affected in the slightest. Rather, he is up and about, actively pondering whether to enter his name in the Goblet of Fire and take his shot at becoming a champion for Hogwarts in the Triwizard Tournament --  
  
"Yeah, I'm really pondering that," Harry muttered.  
  
-- Officials in the Ministry of Magic refuse to comment on whether or not this has anything to do with Dark magic or is just one of the many mysteries regarding Potter's past --  
  
"THAT -- BITCH!" Harry roared in the middle of the Great Hall which made many, many faces turn to him. He then swiveled his head around and muttered sheepishly, "Sorry."  
  
"Let me finish reading it," said Hermione, shaking her head.  
  
-- Whether or not Potter has been playing in the Dark arts remains a mystery, though it must seem strange that he can remain good natured after all that has happened.  
  
"Now that she's written that, I'm sure people are going to wonder whether or not I'm playing around in the Dark arts," Harry rambled.  
  
"Who wrote that junk?" Ron asked.  
  
"Our good friend Rita Skeeter," said Hermione loftily.  
  
"I thought you had her licked?" said Harry, fully disgusted. "What happened?"  
  
"I did," Hermione told him, "but it would seem she doesn't care anymore."  
  
Harry dropped his knife and fork heavily onto the table and went to lean back when Hedwig landed on his shoulder.  
  
"Oh good," he said, feeling slightly more happy, "you have Cho's and Sirius' letters. Here, I'll read you Sirius'."  
  
He tore it open and read aloud.  
  
Harry,  
  
Took you long enough to find out, ha --  
  
"What!" Harry hissed. "He already knew?"  
  
Dumbledore had told me what happened to Mr. Filch's cat and what you did to that Muggle boy got around, though it never got into the Daily Prophet nor did Mrs. Norris. Dumbledore and I have been keeping it from you, figuring you'd probably figure it out eventually and, of course, we were afraid of the reaction you would give us had we told you. And truth be told, we actually knew before you did anything to Mrs. Norris but I think I'll save how we knew for a personal meeting.  
  
Remus and I will be coming down to see the first, second and third task (we'll also be there for the winnings ceremony and, naturally, to see you graduate) so I'll tell you when I get there. I'll find you in the Great Hall during breakfast the day of each task, don't worry about finding me.  
  
Keep in touch; don't lose your head; stop threatening Malfoy; Remus says hello; Ron, stop telling Harry to enter because he doesn't want to. You don't have to write back. I know you're not exactly fine, but you've got enough on your plate without me.  
  
Sirius  
  
"He already knew," Harry repeated, shaking his head and staring at the letter, "I don't believe it."  
  
"And how does he know I keep telling you to enter the tournament?" said Ron, his cheeks turning ginger.  
  
"That's obvious, isn't it?" said Hermione as if it were the easiest question in the world. "I imagine Dumbledore is sending him almost daily owls."  
  
"Then how does Dumbledore know!"  
  
Hermione just laughed.  
  
"So come on then," she said, ignoring Ron and turning to Harry, "read us Cho's letter."  
  
"No," said Harry shortly, stuffing it into his robes and handing Ron Sirius' letter.  
  
It wasn't until he was up in his dormitory with Seamus, Ron, Dean and Neville sleeping did he finally look at her letter. Laying on his back in his pajamas, Harry pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, stretched out his legs, folded them, and read.  
  
Dear Harry,  
  
I don't know what to say so I'll just say this:  
  
I studied this as part of my final year at Hogwarts. Each and every wizard who's ever had the ability to possess someone has used it for something very bad. It's been said that someone with it who finds out they have it usually ends up being a Dark wizard because it goes to their head that they can make people do things. I do believe that won't happen to you mostly because you're too good of a person. You're a real Gryffindor; you're true of heart and you just wouldn't. I wouldn't tell anyone else yet, though, because you need the issue of You-Know-Who to blow over.  
  
Harry stared at "you need the issue of You-Know-Who to blow over." Cho made it sound like something that was just going through a passing phase. While Harry dearly wished it was exactly like this, he didn't think it was going to just pass like the wind any time soon. He folded his legs the other way and went on reading.  
  
My mom and dad were going nuts for a good hour after I showed them your letter but I think I've managed to calm them down; at least my dad is no longer sputtering incoherently anymore. His therapy is going really well, mom thinks he'll be able to get another job soon.  
  
Still love you,  
  
Cho  
  
Reading this left Harry with a tingling feeling. "You spilled your heart out to her and she just couldn't bring herself to be as honest as you were," Hermione had said to him but now it was the exact opposite. Every letter from Cho had been reassuring, trying to keep his spirits up and he hadn't sent her one letter that didn't contain at least one thing depressing. Perhaps he ought to just try a hand at sending her a random letter about the goings-on in his school life? It would be a nice change of pace, what with talking about Voldemort and everything...  
  
Deciding on it, Harry then let the hand holding the letter fall onto his heart, his eyes closed. Every letter Cho had sent had been full of support. He didn't think he'd be able to take a reaction from her that was more along the lines of what he thought she would react like. For a split and very scary second, he envisioned Cho just doing again what she had done when they first met. But then he took comfort in the idea that Cho really did, well... Did Harry actually open her up? Show Cho what it was like to spill your heart out to someone? It made him feel slightly weird, but it just might be true.  
  
Harry unfolded his legs and let one dangle limp off the edge of his four-post bed. He figured that supporting someone, giving them words of comfort and making them feel good about themself was just part of what being in love with someone was really all about. Though he might have experienced it in his first year of life, he couldn't remember any of that. If it was true, that was just more solid proof that the Dursleys hated him right down to how skinny he was and how messy his hair looked. Whenever he tried to comb it, even a mirror once said he was fighting a losing battle.  
  
He turned himself and let his other leg hang off the edge and was now sitting upright, the letter in one hand, that palm on the bed and a nice chunk of bedsheets grasped in the other. Harry took one more look at the last two lines before putting the letter on his bedside cabinet to stare at. Not being at all used to someone caring so much about him, he didn't know whether to smile or look depressed. The look on his face was pretty much neutral, though, as he stood up and took out a piece of parchment and that old pen to write back to Cho. A guilty eye stole a look of the Order of Merlin plaque still danging from his neck and then, not really wanting to grab it for it's effects, took it off, feeling slightly better about himself for the few seconds it was in his hand.  
  
He wrote Dear Cho and then stopped, nothing coming to mind.  
  
What was there to tell her about that didn't involve something stupid and depressing? How he'd been threatening Malfoy to stop bothering him? All about how he'd lost his temper twice in just a few short days? His dad's Invisibility Cloak and how he wasn't going to get it back until the end of the year? More brouhaha about unicorn blood? Rita Skeeter's new article in the Daily Prophet? The entirety of Hogwarts wanting him to enter the Triwizard Tournament? Dudley and the Sorting Hat? Raides and her Dark tendencies?  
  
No, Harry thought, putting the parchment down but keeping the pen in his hand, turning to lie on his back again and stare up at the canopy of his bed, nothing conversational. Harry closed his eyes again and slapped his forehead with the back of his wrist, letting it stay there. There was no denying it, he wanted something to write about, something to show her that he wasn't all about the bad stuff, that there really was a person under all of that Voldemort-killed-my-parents-and-now-I'm-going-to-kill-him stuff. Or would that just be lying horribly to himself, that he really was all about getting revenge on Voldemort and letting his personal life (what personal life?) suffer?  
  
Harry, shaking his head, hacked and slashed that thought until there was nothing left of it. What did he want to be known as? Or did he want to be known at all?  
  
Harry jerked his eyes open, the boring picture of the bottom of the roof of his four-post bed, meeting them. He stretched his arm as far out as possible to put the pen back on the cabinet. It's just not going to happen, he told himself, at least tonight. You have good intentions, and that has to account for something.  
  
Harry put his glasses and bracelet on top of the Order of Merlin necklace.  
  
Rolling over onto his stomach because he was sick of looking at the canopy, Harry let his visions of Cho meeting both his parents slip into dreams, hoping against hope that he wouldn't wake up in the morning -- or in the middle of the night -- having had that one unpleasant dream again. He hadn't had it at Hogwarts yet and the thought of what anyone would say when he woke up screaming from such a dream... well, he didn't want to think about that, either. 


	23. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang

Chapter 23: BEAUXBATONS AND DURMSTRANG  
  
Harry awoke the following morning sweat and scream free, though he still wanted to send Cho something uplifting. The topic of conversation wherever anyone went, regardless of year, was the tournament. Students fourth year and up were telling the third years and under all about the Triwizard Tournament, having been at least first years at Hogwarts the year it made it's grand return. Many names were crossing Harry's ears, in particular his own but others were Malfoy, Ron and Ernie Macmillan, a Hufflepuff seventh year. Ernie and his band of Hufflepuff friends would be constantly talking about it during each Herbology lesson they shared with the Gryffindors.  
  
"My mom wants me to enter," he was saying, "but my dad doesn't. It's weird."  
  
Harry, tending to his blue water lily, a flower with yellow petals in the center of a large quanity of blue ones, was ignoring him.  
  
"Cut up the leaves now," Professor Sprout barked, "they don't bite like Mandrakes do! And remember, do not eat them unless you want to not even be able to feel your own skin. It's a very strange feeling, I assure you."  
  
"What is this stuff, anyway?" Ron asked.  
  
"It makes an extremely potent pain reliever. Although it takes hours to prepare, it's immeasurably stronger than that Muggle one, Morphine and it doesn't do strange stuff to you, either."  
  
"It doesn't work on magical pain, does it?" Harry asked her, guessing that she already swallowed a textbook on the subject. She did nothing but give him a quizzical look. "The Cruciatus Curse," he then said.  
  
"Oh, that," said Hermione uncomfortably.  
  
"'Cause I imagine I'm going to get another dose of it."  
  
"I dunno. I wouldn't think so and I doubt you're willing to try it out."  
  
Harry grinned at her.  
  
"We're probably going to make the potion with this in class," Hermione went on. "You know that really foul-smelling ingredient you had to get? It's part of this potion."  
  
Both Harry and Ron made faces of pure disgust as the smell came back to them.  
  
It was when that Thursday came, the thirtieth of October, that every single teacher at Hogwarts gave up trying to teach anyone anything when every student's mind was clearly on the tournament. Harry spent the entirety of Care of Magical Creatures telling Hagrid that he wasn't going to enter his name into the Goblet of Fire.  
  
"Harry, yeh have ter!" said Hagrid.  
  
"No," said Harry loudly. "I would like to sit this one out and talk about what dangerous task is coming up next during Hogsmeade visits, thanks."  
  
Professor Flitwick, who usually took no one's side -- and was usually a very neutral professor, thought Harry -- was very adamant about him entering.  
  
"It's the pressure," Harry told Ron and Hermione after finally getting away from Charms, "that's going to make me so very upset when I enter my name."  
  
"What?" squeaked Hermione. "You're thinking of entering?"  
  
"Of course I'm not! It's just that everyone wants a Hogwarts victory --"  
  
"You're right, you know," said Ron.  
  
"-- and everyone seems to have it in their head that if I enter, I'll not only definitely get my name spit out, I'll win. I only won last time because Barty Crouch's son, Barty Crouch, was helping me along," Harry said irritably. "What a mess that was."  
  
"You didn't do that bad, you know," said Hermione timidly. "I mean, no one expected you to fly your old Firebolt around that dragon, or to save everyone from the lake --"  
  
"No," said Harry loudly for the hundredth time in one day. "The second task with the lake was embarassing and he was clearing my way through the maze, too."  
  
He was very pleased to see that Professor McGonagall didn't share this ridiculous view that everyone else seemed to have -- or at least she just wasn't giving outward signs about it.  
  
"Oh, a Gryffindor bringing the glory to Hogwarts would be very nice," she sighed for the second time in under thirty minutes.  
  
By now, Harry had been holding his forehead with one hand and the other, tapping his fingers impatiently on his desk, staring at an upside-down open book that he clearly wasn't reading.  
  
"I don't need this," he said loudly (he then realized he'd been saying a lot of things loudly in one day alone), "what with drinking unicorn blood and other oddities this year..."  
  
"I'm sorry, Potter --" Professor McGonagall apologized.  
  
"Save it," said Harry shortly.  
  
"Very well," said Professor McGonagall as the bell rang, signaling all the students to drop their books and bags off in their dormitories.  
  
"How d'you suppose they're going to arrive this time?" asked a Hufflepuff streaking past Harry.  
  
"Last time my brother said they arrived by dragons!" his friend told him.  
  
"Hardly," Harry called out to them. When they turned to see who was talking to them, they broke into a run.  
  
"Suppose Durmstrang is coming by that ship again and Beauxbatons by that huge flying horse-drawn carriage?" Ron suggested as they rounded on the Fat Lady.  
  
Hermione gave her the password and then said, "Probably. I suppose someone's going to have Harry use Raides to do something really nice just so we can show off."  
  
Harry grinned down at Raides who was looking up at him hopefully.  
  
"I wouldn't mind that," Raides let them know.  
  
"I bet you wouldn't," Ron muttered, sounding slightly upset.  
  
"What's with you?" Hermione asked him.  
  
"I want a staff like that!" he whined.  
  
Harry blushed, trying not to look too pleased with himself as he and Ron split at the spiral staircase to drop their books off. Sure enough, when Harry exited the castle with Ron and Hermione, Dumbledore was standing next to Professor McGonagall, apparently waiting for Harry to come.  
  
"Potter!" said Professor McGonagall, sounding oddly happy, her arms wide out like she was going to hug him (he hoped that she wasn't going to).  
  
Harry knew right away that, unlike Dumbledore, she couldn't possibly restrain herself when the possibility of showing off to two other wizarding schools was so much within her grasp. Dumbledore, though apprehensive, had given in. Mr. Weasley had once told Harry a few years back that wizards couldn't help but show off to each other when they congregate.  
  
"I'm just going to show you a quick Charm that produces a dragon made of light as an, er -- a gesture of welcome to our foreign guests," Dumbledore explained. "Very popular back in ancient times to light up grand events as it provided enormous amounts of light that never burned out."  
  
Raides, taking Harry's open hand over her head as a hint, jumped up into the air, transforming into the grand Staff of Cybele and landed right in his hand. Many people stopped talking as she did this to stare though it wasn't quite on the scale of stares that he would be getting after summoning the dragon made of light.  
  
"This was a discovery of mine after reading through a book on ancient forms of entertainment," said Dumbledore, grinning but he cleared his throat loudly from the look on Professor McGonagall's stern face. "Just repeat after me, Harry, while making a figure-eight in the air with the staff. That's it, good. Now, keeping making it until the dragon is fully out. Lumos --"  
  
"Lumos --"  
  
"Vipera."  
  
"Vipera."  
  
As soon as he finished this, what looked more like a snake than a dragon started coming out of the staff's crystal, head first. It was pure white and very bright, so bright it lit up from the castle front doors over to Hagrid's cabin. The dragon was about three feet thick, it's body perfectly round, it's head sporting teeth made of heavenly rays of light and where there would have been eyes in it's sockets, there were instead pearly-white balls.  
  
It's head, the fangs being about six inches long, looked very menacing, though as it extended out of the staff, it immediately headed for the middle of the congregation of students. Everyone except a few very brave Gryffindors quickly got out of the way, which was probably what made Dumbledore shout, "No need to run! It can not hurt you, let alone sink it's teeth into you!"  
  
The dragon of light then start doing it's own figure eight just over the heads of the students and staff, lighting up on the front grounds of Hogwarts as if it were day. All of it was quite beautiful to look at, if slightly startling at first. When the tip of the tail extended out of the scarlet crystal, the dragon had to have been at least one hundred feet in length.  
  
When Harry found his voice, the first thing out of it was a "wow" at his own handiwork. There were murmurs of interest and fright at the enormous-being-an-understatement light-dragon.  
  
"That makes the wand-light spell, Lumos, look like child's play!" shrieked Ron in amazement.  
  
"Ron, so far anything this staff has done has made wands look like child's play," Hermione told him in a honey-have-I-got-something-to-tell-you sort of voice, staring up at the dragon just a few feet above their heads.  
  
It was rather like a large, moving, magnificent chandelier except it wasn't; it was a so-very-long dragon made up of light that moved ominously overhead, so long, in fact, that along it's path, there was always at least two coils of it's body swirling above you.  
  
For quite a long time, there was very little talking and a lot of staring done until some of the people got their senses back.  
  
"Weasley, straighten your cloak!" barked Professor McGonagall, stilling staring up at the light-dragon and then, "And someone tell Mr. Gulia that Muggle hats should not be worn when welcoming foreign wizards! First years in front, no pushing! Seventh years in the back. All in order!"  
  
Ron took off his cloak, which was perfectly straight to begin with, brushed off some leaves from a nearby tree and put it back on. Harry followed Ron, Hermione and the other Gryffindor seventh years to the back of the line the teachers had placed most of the students in.  
  
"It's just about six," said Harry, looking down at his golden watch.  
  
Someone pointed up in the sky and shouted, "Look! A flying house!" but Harry knew it wasn't a flying house, it was the Beauxbatons horse-drawn carriage.  
  
"Why can't they come in something more interesting," Ron groaned, "like maybe a Gate... or one of those cool Teleportation Charms that they used to use back in the third century!"  
  
"Don't be ridiculous, Weasley," said Professor Sinistra, who teaches Astronomy. "No one uses Gates anymore, they got too closely associated with Dark magic and the Teleportation Charms, while they looked very nice, were superceeded by the much easier to use Apparation and Disapparation. Besides, some still have trouble with those," she added, looking at the back of Professor McGonagall's head with a sharp stare.  
  
Gazing up at the cloud-free sky, Harry pulled his cloak closer to himself, as it was quite cold out, and looked skyward. The image of a giant something was soaring high over the Forbidden Forest. As it came closer and closer, Harry could make out the gigantic, powderblue image of the carriage itself which was roughly the size of a large house. The dozen or so enormous horses, all palominos and all each nearly the size of an elephant, were pulling the gigantic carriage. All of this, of course, was to accomodate the size of the headmistress of Beauxbatons which was a large woman who was part-giant named Madam Maxime.  
  
The front row of students took one large simultaneous step backwards as the carriage flew ever lower, coming in at an astonishing speed. Then, with an almighty bang that made the ground beneath everyone quake, the horses' hooves, the size of the golden plates in the Great Hall, slammed into the ground. The carriage itself landed not a second later, bouncing slightly on it's equally vast wheels. The horses were alarming this close up, tossing their heads and staring at students with their large, fiery red eyes. On the door of the carriage was the Beauxbatons coat of arms, two crossed golden wands, each emitting three stars.  
  
And then the carriage door opened and a girl in pale blue robes jumped down from it (it rose a few feet off the ground), dropping down golden steps as she fiddled with something on the side. She stepped backwards so that the rest of the students inside the carriage could emerge and the first thing coming out was a shiny, high-heeled black shoe, bigger even than the black, pointy hat upon Harry's head. A few people gasped, or at least, those third year and below as the rest had already seen the giganticness that was Madam Maxime. As tall as Hagrid himself, the two of them got on very well, almost too well, Harry thought, because each time he had visited Hagrid with Ron and Hermione, there was a stockpile of letters from her inside his cabin.  
  
Following the shoe, which shined brightly from the light of the dragon, were silk robes of black, exactly like what she had worn on her arrival last time except those were of satin. She gave a startled look at the light-dragon as she spotted it, causing the carriage to shake.  
  
"Dumbly-dorr!" she gasped, a massive hand, gleaming with opals, over her heart.  
  
"My dear Madam Maxime," said Dumbledore at once, curtly stepping through the wall of students, "how do you do? Kindly ignore the rather extravagant source of light our dear Minerva, here, suggested we use," he added, smiling which made Professor McGonagall turn as red as Madam Maxime's fingernails.  
  
Madam Maxime would have then proceeded to walk but she caught sight of the equally enormous Staff of Cybele which rose a clear two or so feet above Harry's head. It's scarlet crystal stuck in the mouth of the lion's golden head, the golden fur covering the length of the staff, down to the tail where it changed smoothly back to scarlet; it froze her. The hand on her heart moved up to her mouth and she gasped again. Harry supposed he ought to get used to this as there was going to be plenty of it.  
  
Harry's mouth moved wordlessly for a moment and then he said, "The Staff of Cybele."  
  
"Is it?" said Madam Maxime weakly.  
  
"Mr. Potter will be introducing Cybele's most excellent staff, Raides, to yourselves and our delegations from Durmstrang during the Welcoming Feast," said Dumbledore, bowing slightly but as he did so, something inside the lake stirred, signaling the arrival of Durmstrang. "And here they come!"  
  
Harry, introduce Raides? He wasn't exactly informed of this ahead of time... He looked at Dumbledore, who looked back, grinned, then turned his attention to the lake.  
  
"I'm positively freezing," Ron whispered to Harry. "Couldn't you come up with a tricky little charm to prevent us from becoming icicles?"  
  
"I don't know any," said Harry, "and I'm not about to try anything with Dumbledore standing next to me."  
  
Dumbledore looked at Harry again, still grinning.  
  
Harry, feeling Dumbledore's gaze penetrate him, looked at Madam Maxime, who carelessly waved a hand behind her, calling her dozen of students forth. They joined the Hogwarts students in watching the lake. They did look very cold, however, as their robes were made of fine silk and they were not wearing cloaks. Some of them wrapped scarves and shawls around their heads but it wasn't helping much. A few stared up at the castle, some stared at the lake, some were looking at the Staff of Cybele and more still were looking at the dragon above their heads.  
  
A muffled rumbling and sucking sound was emanating from the middle of the lake as though a tremendous vacuum cleaner was edging along the riverbed. Harry recalled from last time how the Durmstrang party arrived: by teleporting ship. Quickly becoming not smooth at all as it usually was, in the center of the lake, great big bubbles were forming on the surface. Waves were washing over the now-muddy bank. Quite suddenly, out of the middle of the lake itself, a humongous whirlpool appeared like someone had pulled a large plug out of the bottom of it.  
  
"...and there's the mast," said Ron lazily.  
  
Slowly, the magnificent Durmstrang ship rose out of the water, gleaming in the combined light from the moon and the light from the dragon. Last time it had looked slightly skeletal, but now it more resemebled that of a ship having undergone a complete reconstruction. Harry doubted at all whether it was the same ship as it clearly wasn't. The previous one looked like it had been pulled from wreckage and restored so that it just worked but this one was ocean blue along the edges with what had to be a charm on the sides itself to make it look like the painting was water -- or was it real water, slapped on and made to stick to the sides of the ship? Misty light shimmered out of the portholes and finally, with a big sloshing noise, the ship rose fully out of the lake, bobbing on the high waves and then it glided gracefully towards the bank.  
  
But it didn't stop there. The ship rose a few feet above the water and began changing shape entirely. Within a few seconds, it had turned into a wonderful, several-room cabin that floated on air. The front door swung open and out of it, along the water, a lengthy piece of stone, stretching past the doors of the cabin, extended, sloping downwards, further and further until it touched the bank. There were small, yellow lights every few inches along the bridge to the bank. It looked rather like someone had paid a lot to erect a house out on a river and then connect a beautiful drawbridge to the shore. But they couldn't be a Muggle because the walls of the house were made of water.  
  
"That looks very strange," said Ron quietly, his face screwed up in confusion at the odd walls. "Can't you stick your hand through that? And it must be freezing inside!"  
  
"It's a Solidifier Charm," said Hermione with an air of superiority. "You can turn anything liquid solid and it's harder than a wall of foot-thick steel. It's probably warmer in there than the castle."  
  
Ron sighed at the side of her head as a very familiar someone else emerged from the cabin made of water: Professor Karkaroff. All of students following him, for a second, looked to be built far bigger than even Dudley but their bulk was due to their robes which were made of shaggy, matted fur. Karkaroff's own furs were sleek and silver, exactly like his hair. He paid absolutely no attention to the seven foot staff in Harry's hand or the dragon over his head doing figure-eights... but his students sure did.  
  
"Hello, hello, Dumbledore!" he called heartily as his foot stepped onto the shore, his voice every bit as fruity and unctuous as Harry remembered it. "Beautiful night! How are you?"  
  
"Excellent, thank you, Professor Karkaroff," replied Dumbledore.  
  
Kararoff finally looked up above and Harry saw that the goatee he had had last time he was at Hogwarts was now no more than sparse hairs on his chin. The hair on his head was white and short. He was a tall, thin wizard, somewhat like Dumbledore. When he reached Dumbledore, Karkaroff shook one of his hands with both of his own. He smiled, showing his very yellow teeth and his smile, this time, Harry noticed, extended up to his eyes. Last time his smile had not, leaving his face a mixed breed of warmth and coldness.  
  
"And how are you this fine evening," said Karkaroff, walking over to Madam Maxime.  
  
Madam Maxime did nothing more than give Karkaroff a set of cold eyes which was unsettling and Karkaroff, dropping his proper manner, looked down at the ground, beckoned his students forth, and walked up into the castle.  
  
"Karkaroff has -- veil, I vill tell you during ze feast," Madam Maxime whispered slowly to Dumbledore in a voice so quiet Harry wasn't supposed to hear but he did anyway.  
  
"What has Karkaroff done?" Harry whispered quietly to Ron and Hermione. "Madam Maxime just said he did something... but she wouldn't say what."  
  
Ron and Hermione looked at him and then all three of them shrugged.  
  
"I thought he would have quit being headmaster of Durmstrang after Voldemort," said Harry. "I mean, Voldemort does want his skin and being headmaster of a school, he sure knows where Karkaroff is." 


	24. The Goblet of Fire

Chapter 24: THE GOBLET OF FIRE  
  
"Oh, whatever," said Dean Thomas next to them. "I want to know what's going on besides the stupid tournament! This year is going to be cool!"  
  
"Tell me about it," said Ron, grinning and rubbing his hands together as they headed up the grounds and into the castle to sit down in the Great Hall.  
  
The dragon made of light ominously followed Harry into the castle and, with a wave of the staff at it, starting from the tail, the light died out until it was gone entirely.  
  
Harry, Ron and Hermione took their usual seats at the Gryffindor table, looking all around as the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students filed into the vast Great Hall. It looked a lot more crowded even though there were only far under thirty additional students. Perhaps this was because their uniforms were a stark contrast to the black of the Hogwarts robes. As they all sidled in, when the first Durmstrang student removed their furs, Harry saw that their robes were of a deep bloodred as they were last time.  
  
"Dumbledore ought to consider getting a new color for Hogwarts, robes, eh?" said Raides, still as the staff.  
  
Harry didn't want to startle any of them... any more than they already were... Very quickly however, Dumbledore walked over to them.  
  
"Harry, please put Raides in my care as I do not want to startle our guests and it seems they so very will be," he said calmly. "I daresay it's not every day you see something such as her and I myself was quite startled when I first saw her transform."  
  
Harry, Ron, Hermione and Raides all grinned broadly.  
  
"All right. You go with him then, and you listen to him, too," said Harry, looking at Raides sharply.  
  
Raides rolled her yellow eyes and went back to smiling as Dumbledore grabbed hold of her and walked up to the staff table.  
  
As one Beauxbatons girl swept into the Great Hall, several boys' heads turned to gaze fixedly at her.  
  
Hermione folded her arms and gave a cough that sounded a lot like "veela." Harry knew veela to be something like a regular human female except that they had an interesting ability of making males swoon over them.  
  
"Is that Professor Delacour's younger sister?" he asked, shaking Ron's shoulder to get him to stop staring.  
  
"Honestly," Hermione muttered as Harry did this, and when Ron was back to his usual self, she said, "What was her name? Gabrielle? But she was young, Professor Fleur Delacour must have another sister or something."  
  
"They do look similar," said Harry.  
  
"But she's definitely a veela," said Ron, pointing out all of the other boys who were staring at her as she passed, but then, to Ron's horror, the girl spotted him.  
  
"Hide me," Ron said, suddenly sounding very scared, turning around and also suddenly becoming very stiff. Both of his hands were on the edge of the table and grasping it as if he ever let go, he would fall and die.  
  
The girl motioned for her fellow Beauxbatons classmates to follow her -- right over to the Gryffindor table. The girl herself sat across from Ron and her smile seemed to unstiffen him ever so slightly.  
  
"Hello!" she said, her silvery hair flowing gallantly behind her as she pushed it from in front of her shoulders to behind them. "My name is Adrianne, ze sister of Professor Delacour?" she went on kindly.  
  
She closely resembled her older sister, both of them having very straight, almost perfectly white teeth, large, deep blues eyes and a sheet of long silvery-blonde hair. Her hair, unlike her sister's, only went down to the middle of her back and not her waist.  
  
"Hello," said Ron weakly ("Honestly," said Hermione).  
  
"My sister has told me a lot about you," said Adrianne, "and you, 'Arry, is it?" she added, turning to him.  
  
"Yes," said Harry, grinning, and then grinning at the side of Ron's head.  
  
"Is there something wrong wiz 'im?" asked Adrianne, looking curiously at Ron who's arm was hidden under the table and twitching convulsively.  
  
"No," Hermione said at once, "but it's just that he turns to sludge when a girl talks to him. I'm not a girl, so I don't count," she said loftily, referring to the time around the Yule Ball during the last Triwizard Tournament.  
  
After many failed attempts with other girls, Ron had finally asked Hermione to go to the Yule Ball with him. She refused after Ron said that he would take any girl as long as they looked good even if they were horrible as a person. In reality, Hermione had already been asked by Viktor Krum and didn't want to tell Ron. Harry now even more strongly suspected that Ron and Hermione liked one another but were too far embarassed to admit it to one another...  
  
Just then, Madam Maxime entered the Great Hall and all of the Beauxbatons (who were all sitting at the Gryffindor table) stood up. A few Hogwarts students, even those who had seen them do this last time, stifled laughs. Adrianne stood up at once and none of them sat down until Madam Maxime sat down at Dumbledore's side. Mr. Filch, the caretaker, had added several chairs up at the staff table. Harry looked up at saw Ludo Bagman up at the staff table as well as Percy Weasley.  
  
"Percy's here?" Ron asked Harry.  
  
"Of course," said Ron stiffly.  
  
Hermione tutted and then said, "He's judging, isn't he? Mr. Fudge hired him to take Barty Crouch's place ever since..."  
  
Now Dumbledore stood up and a silence fell over the Great Hall. Harry couldn't make out any sign of Raides.  
  
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and -- most importantly -- guests," said Dumbledore, positively beaming around at the foreign students. "I have great pleasure in welcoming each and every one of you to Hogwarts and I hope that your stay in our humble abode will be as enjoyable as it is comfortable."  
  
Harry -- and Hermione, he was sure -- remembered it was at this point that Fleur Delacour, when she had been sitting among the students, let out a derisive laugh at this comment from Dumbledore. Just to be sure, he looked up at her sitting at the staff table next to Professor Sprout. Her attention was rapt among all of the new students.  
  
"The Triwizard Tournament will officially be open at the end of the feast," said Dumbledore. "For now, I invite you all to enjoy our wondrous feast and make yourselves at home! I do have some words before we leave that I must attend to," he said, gazing in particular at Harry, who blinked then swallowed, turning to his plate which had just filled with food.  
  
"And, dear God, what is that," said Ron, staring at a strange dish that consisted of, well, Harry didn't really know what that was.  
  
"Mousse de Foies de Volaille," said Hermione.  
  
"I'm not even going to try to repeat what you just said," Ron told her, taking a slice of ham and some mashed potatoes.  
  
"I saw it in a book once," said Hermione as Adrianne and one of her friends began talking in quick french and snatched up the Mousse de Foies de Volaille.  
  
There was silence for a moment, and then --  
  
"So how do you suppose Durmstrang and company was able to get that new shape-changing ship?" Ron asked.  
  
"I have heard bad zings about zat Durmstrang Academy," said Adrianne. "Is it true zat their 'eadmaster is a former, what is it, Death Eater?"  
  
Harry, Ron and Hermione stared at one another.  
  
"Yes," said Harry, "he was."  
  
"He was so biased towards 'is own students, zat man..." said one of Adrianne's friends. "I never liked him vairy much."  
  
"Me either," said Ron quickly which made Hermione roll her eyes.  
  
When the deserts arrived, there were many things that were quite unfamiliar as well. Harry prodded something white and fluffy with his finger, licked it, made a face of disgust and then watched as Adrianne and her lot ate it, commenting on how very good it was here at Hogwarts.  
  
Once the golden plates had been clean ("Zis food is very good," said another girl from Beauxbatons, nodding to Adrianne), Dumbledore got to his feet and a wave of silence swept over the Great Hall.  
  
"The Triwizard Tournament is about to start and before we begin, I would like to say a few words of explanation before we bring in the casket," he said, "just to clarify the procedure that we will follow this year. Due to last time's -- er -- success, the rules will be much the same. But first, let me introduce Mr. Percy Weasley, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation."  
  
Percy stood up, his chest swelling with pride and Ron keen on avoiding his eyes. The entire Great Hall clapped, but it wasn't exactly flattering applause.  
  
"He's been bragging about it all summer," said Ron bitterly.  
  
"And Mr. Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports."  
  
There was tumultuous applause for Bagman, partly due to his fame as a Beater or quite simply that he didn't look so narrow-minded and strict in his robes of festive orange and black; they wouldn't have looked out of place at a Muggle Halloween party. Bagman stood up and waved jovially. Percy had done the same but it was in a stiff sort of manner, like he wanted to do it, but thought it would be too unprofessional if he was too into it.  
  
"Mr. Bagman and Mr. Weasley -- whose younger brother, mind you, is considering entering --" Dumbledore said, which made Ron turn so red his face matched the color of his flaming red hair, "have worked tirelessly over the summer and months beforehand on the arrangements and monstrous preparations for the tournament. They will be joining myself, Professor Karkaroff and Madam Maxime on the panel judging the champions' efforts."  
  
There was a marked improvement in the attention of students third year and under at the word "champions." Even some of the older students, who had evidently forgotten, were listening more attentively. Dumbledore noticed this, smiled, and said, "The casket, then, Mr. Filch, if you will."  
  
Filch, who was standing behind something furry, golden and scarlet, walked into greater prominence, carrying a big wooden, jewel-encrusted chest looking so old, it would give Raides a run for her money. A wave of murmurs broke out over the hall and several smaller students tried to stand on their seats to get a better look.  
  
"Instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined and approved by Mr. Bagman and Mr. Weasley," said Dumbledore as Filch placed the old chest on the table in front of Dumbledore, "and the necessary arrangements for each challenge have been made. There will be three tasks spaced evenly througout the school year, all designed to test the champions in different ways. Their magical prowess, their daring, their power of mind and, above all, their ability to rise to a challenge in the face of danger."  
  
While the majority of students had already been through this speech once before, there was a silence in the Great Hall such that even the air itself had stopped to listen.  
  
"As is known, there will be three champions in the tournament," Dumbledore went on calmly, "one from each of the three participating schools, Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Each of the champions will be given marks on how well they perform each of the tasks of the tournament. At the very end, the champion with the highest total score will win the Triwizard Cup. Champions for each school will be selected by an impartial judge: the Goblet of Fire."  
  
Dumbledore pulled out his wand from inside his robes and tapped the ancient jewel-encrusted chest three times. The lid creaked open slowly and Dumbledore reached inside it, pulling out a large, old wooden cup. It looked like any other wooden cup, entirely boring save for the blue-white flames inside of it, full to the tip.  
  
Dumbledore closed the casket, placing the goblet carefully on top of it, visibile to everyone in the Hall.  
  
"Anybody wishing the submit themselves as a candidate for champion of their school must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment and drop it in the goblet," said Dumbledore. "Wishful champions have twenty-four hours to put their names forward and I do beg you all not to enter your friends' for them. Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will have chosen names and return three, one from each school, of which it has judged most worthy and up to the task of being champion. The goblet itself will be placed in the entrance hall tonight where it will be accessibe to everyone.  
  
"To assure that no underage student shall enter their name, there will be an Age Line drawn around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed. Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line -- without incident," he said, smiling. "Do note that for anyone wishing to enter, this tournament is not to be taken lightly. Once you have been selected, you are obliged to see the tournament to it's end. Placing your name in the goblet secures a binding contract and there can be no change of heart once you have been selected. Therefore, before submitting yourself, be very sure that you are well up to the task.  
  
"Now before we go, I have two more announcements to make," Dumbledore continued calmly as an almighty uproar broke out over the Great Hall. This was it, Dumbledore was finally going to tell what was going on besides the tournament itself. The next sentence he spoke was loud so as to drown out the roar of voices. "Firstly, one of our number is here as a safety precaution against none other than Lord Voldemort," said Dumbledore which put a quick stop to the roar of excited voices. "As many of you know, a recent discovery of some students at Hogwarts led to the finding of the ancient and long thought-to-be mythological Staff of Cybele."  
  
Several of the foreign students let out derisive laughs, including Adrianne. It was obvious they didn't believe a word of it. Harry simply continued grinning.  
  
"Raides, if you will?" called Dumbledore.  
  
There was a pause... in which there was no sign of Raides. Several more of the foreign students laughed.  
  
"You better call her, Harry, because she's not listening to Dumbledore anymore," said Ron.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes, stood up, looking at the staff table and called out, "Raides, come."  
  
It was that voice that Raides listened to, and, causing several of the foreign students to gasp in fear, Raides crawled out from behind Dumbledore, making her way to Harry. Raides, all the way from the staff table, pushed her powerful legs against the floor and leapt high into the air (causing more gasps), higher than usual, and landed perfectly on Harry's outstretched hand as the staff. He twirled it in the air once, and then put her down as she transformed into a lion again. All the while, Ron had been overcome by a strong fit of giggles at the look on Adrianne's face. Her mouth was so wide open you could fit a plate full of Mousse de Foies de Volaille in it.  
  
"As you will note," Dumbledore continued calmly, taking his seat, "she does not even listen to me. Raides is nothing to fear, however and is quite a friendly lion once you get to know her," he chuckled. "She listens only to Mr. Potter and you will frequently find the two of them walking around the castle together. Raides is naturally a staff but, as you see, can transform into a lion at will. I will perfectly understand if many of you are uncomfortable around her presence but I trust you will eventually become as comfortable as the rest of us."  
  
This wasn't entirely true as some students still skirted her in the corridors.  
  
"Finally, I'm willing to bet the lot of you would eat a dragon if that was what it would take for me to tell you what else Hogwarts is hosting this year," said Dumbledore. "Some of you may or may not know about a famous wizarding school in another country, the United States of America. Deep underground in the city of Manhattan in the state of New York, lies Paladin Laurence Patrick Hayden's Manhattan School of Wizardy."  
  
"I've heard of that!" Hermione whispered to Harry's and Ron's lit up faces.  
  
"Mr. Hayden's prestigious school has turned out many fine Paladins of our age. One of our very own, one Lily Evans Potter," Dumbledore continued with a furtive glance at Harry, "was due to attend their graduate program. Hogwarts' own Paladism class was designed in part with one of the head professors at the school.  
  
"As part of our ongoing efforts to promote international magical cooperation, Hogwarts will be sponsoring a stay in and around Manhattan and possibly, if we can, in the most magnificent dormitories of the school itself. Mr. Hayden's school covers a square mile under the city of Manhattan and is just as beautiful -- if not more so -- as the city itself," explained Dumbledore. "It is not yet determined how long and around when the trip will be happening but there is a required fee of twenty galleons, which pays for the residential fees, food, transportation and a tour of the school. We do know it may happen around Christmas or it may take place after the second task, giving all of you a week or two off of your studies. When more information concerning the matter is available, I will inform everyone during dinner that night. And now, it think it is time for bed. Good night to you all."  
  
"Wow," said a voice behind Harry belonging to Seamus Finnigan as everyone stood up. "The Manhattan School of Wizardry, my gran's talked a lot about it. My great, great grandfather went there. He said that the dormitories alone in the school can fit the whole of Hogwarts in them!"  
  
"That -- is -- big," said Ron.  
  
"I think big is an understatement," Seamus went on. "It covers a square mile under the city. There's a dueling wing which is attached to a famous hospital, used by the wizarding community there even if they don't go to the school (and it's run by graduate students), a weapons training wing, many classroom wings. And that's all just for the graduate buildings. They use a permanent Gate -- despite the fact that most people don't like them -- to travel across the campus, across the Fire Quidditch field which doubles as a regular Quidditch field, to the undergraduate building -- and I heard they let a vampire student in this year --"  
  
"Okay, I get the idea," said Ron.  
  
"The entrance hall is made of glass and being underground, you'd think the scenery is horrible but it's nothing of the sort. There's so much room, they might even let our parents come for free at some point. You mark my words --"  
  
Seamus went on and on (he mentioned something about them letting in anyone, even part humans) as everyone walked over to the doors of the Hall, Raides now trotting ahead of Harry. When Karkaroff finally saw her up close, he practically ran past her, afraid he was going to get bitten or something. Harry was at least happy that, this year, no one was stopping to stare at the scar on his forehead.  
  
"I wonder how we're going to get there?" said Hermione. "I mean, it's a bit far to Disapparate and I haven't seen any mass means of transportation for us like Durmstrang's ship and the carriage from Beauxbatons."  
  
"Whatever it is," said Harry, grinning, "it's going to be interesting to see, I'm sure."  
  
Friday, when everyone usually rose early enough only to get up for classes, Harry, Ron and Hermione weren't the only ones getting up extra early just to stand around the entrance hall and wait to see if anyone went to put their name in the Goblet of Fire. It was in the center of the entrance hall, a ten foot in diameter yellow Age Line drawn around it, sitting on the stool usually sat upon by the Sorting Hat.  
  
"So who thinks Malfoy isn't going to?" asked Ron, standing by the doors of the Great Hall, his arms folded and peering curiously around.  
  
"I wouldn't, Weasley, but you might wanna," sneered a voice coming up from the dungeons. "Father says the tasks this year are a bit more dangerous. Maybe if you get yourself killed, your family could finally afford a new set of robes for your little sister!"  
  
"Hello, Malfoy," said Harry coolly, making himself seen from the wall next to the dungeons staircase. He budged up against Raides and Malfoy walked quickly into the Great Hall.  
  
"Little prat," said Ron bitterly. "He's going to get his, you wait."  
  
"Watch him go running to his daddy now that he's afraid of me," Harry chuckled.  
  
"Who cares about him, has anyone put their name in yet?" asked Hermione anxiously.  
  
"The Durmstrang lot and I just saw Susan Bones from Hufflepuff drop her name in!" said Hannah Abbot, a Hufflepuff seventh year. "Some Ravenclaw girl, Lisa Turpin, put her name in, too, and rumor has it Millicent Bulstrode from Slytherin put her name in in the middle of the night."  
  
"I'll eat Pig if Bulstrode gets in," said Ron.  
  
"I'll eat Raides," said Harry, fully agreeing.  
  
Fifteen minutes had passed and along came Justin Finch-Fletchley, a Hufflepuff seventh year who Harry got along with fairly well in Herbology classes. He was carrying a small slip of parchment and looking very smug.  
  
"Harry!" said Justin once he'd spotted him. "Going to enter your name, too? Or have you already?"  
  
Harry didn't say anything. Justin hastily dropped the slip of parchment into the goblet and then they were all joined by James Griffith, Craig Stone and Ginny. Craig immediately asked who from Hogwarts had put their name in. Hermione ticked them off one by one off her fingers.  
  
"Bulstrode?" asked James in disgust. "You mean the fat one that resembles Harry's cousin, Dudley, with some extra padding and looking twice as ugly?" Harry and Ron quickly turned their laughs into hacking coughs. "Not to mention I see him hanging around the Slytherins. Seems particularly keen on following Malfoy around --" he was saying while looking pointedly at Harry.  
  
"I'm not worried about him," he told James, shaking his head slowly.  
  
"His main weapon is Malfoy and if you haven't noticed, Malfoy's deathly afraid of Harry now," Ron explained, finishing with a snigger while Harry gave Raides a meaningful pat on the head.  
  
"So, going to enter your name, Harr-"  
  
"No," said Harry shortly, feeling generally annoyed and, abandoning his post hastily, turned into the Great Hall.  
  
When he was out of earshot, James asked Hermione and Ron, "Why's he so testy about it?"  
  
"He's not acting all himself lately," said Ron, watching Harry go.  
  
"As if that wasn't obvious. He's been acting a little odd since, well, the beginning of the year?"  
  
"Yeah, I'd say that'd be about right..."  
  
"D'you think maybe... it's just because of Cho? I mean, he gets very sensitive talking about her in front of anyone," said Hermione slowly.  
  
"We weren't just talking about Cho now, were we?" said Ginny testily, shaking her head.  
  
"Who knows, but something's definitely up and I sure wouldn't bring the subject up to him," said James.  
  
They all looked at each other and then at Harry as he sat down, Raides at his side. James and Ginny followed Craig, Ron and Hermione into the Great Hall, taking seats near Harry and Neville.  
  
"You didn't enter, did you, Neville?" Ginny asked.  
  
"My gran says I'm in enough danger in Potions classes!" Neville bursted out, "and I don't need any more trouble by going into the Triwizard Tournament."  
  
"And you really think your name will come out if you enter it?" said the distinct voice of Dudley from behind Harry.  
  
"Since when did you start taking up Malfoy's job?" said Harry hotly, not turning around. While mean to say aloud, everyone thought Dudley had a point. "Go away."  
  
"He's walking back to Malfoy now," said Ginny, staring at Dudley as he left. "What's up with him? Why doesn't he hang around Gryffindors?"  
  
"I can't believe him. Dudley's a Mudblood and -- sorry," said Harry quickly, watching Hermione wince at the word "Mudblood." Harry knew it to be the most foul thing to call someone born of Muggle parents but it had simply slipped his tongue.  
  
"Please, Harry," said Hermione, who could be referred to as one, "it's bad enough with Malfoy blabbing it all over the place. Don't you go saying it, too."  
  
"Well, Dudley's Muggle-born and you know how much the Malfoy family loves Muggle-borns," said Harry sarcastically, his anger rising ever so slightly. "That's the only reason he even acknowledges Dudley's existence, because he's the only person that can possibly hate me as much as he does." Harry didn't see Ron and Hermione exchanged nervous glances. "I'd like to just -- just be able to possess someone so I could do it to Dudley and hit Malfoy -- then run away."  
  
He had almost said that he could possess someone but quickly remembered how much of an uproar that might cause.  
  
"Please, Harry," said Hermione slowly and very seriously, and Harry completely missed the quizzical faces of Craig, James and Ginny gave when Ron looked positively horrified for a split second, "don't joke about things like possession."  
  
"Don't even say you can," said Neville, helping himself to some porridge which had just appeared in front of him. "My gran doesn't want me being friends with anyone who can -- who has that ability..."  
  
Hermione looked at Harry gravely but his spirit did not sink. Deep down, he really wanted to get back at either Dudley or Malfoy... and possession looked like the way to do it from where he was standing. He glanced at all the worried faces looking at him and helped himself to a doughnut and some orange juice.  
  
"What?" he said impatiently.  
  
Hermione cleared her throat loudly, blinked, looked down at her toast and she, Ron, Craig, James and Ginny stopped looking at Harry.  
  
For History of Magic that morning, Professor Binns did nothing but further Harry's annoyance, going on and on in class about Dark wizards and how they'd abused possession through the ages. This seemed to be a hot topic because in lunch after Defense Against the Dark Arts (where still more people asked Harry, especially Dennis Creevey, if he had entered), Professor Delacour had everyone read up on how to tell if you're being possessed, ways of fighting it off (which was nearly impossible) and ways to prevent it in the first place.  
  
But that was only the first half of class; during the second half, everyone was allowed to talk about the Triwizard Tournament and Professor Delacour herself asked if Harry would be entering.  
  
"I hear all the Slytherins are going to enter their names in the goblet," she had said.  
  
"Well that's nice," said Harry, "now would everyone stop asking me about it?"  
  
It wasn't until after Paladism was over did things get nasty. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Raides were crossing the entrance hall five minutes early. Dumbledore dismissed them as he saw no point in keeping them waiting for dinner when they weren't paying attention how to force a possessor out of a body anyway.  
  
"All the Slytherins did enter their names!" cried Justin Finch-Fletchley, coming out of a Care of Magical Creatures class. "That's just great. One of them is going to get their name spit out, I know it."  
  
Hermione started to look worried, sharing the same sentiments as Justin. Ron had been doing this all along and, during Paladism, he wrote Ron Weasley -- Hogwarts on a slip of parchment.  
  
"Oh, no," said Harry instantly. "No, no, no. Go on, Ron. Drop it in, already."  
  
Ron bit his lip, walked over the Age Line drawn around the goblet, put his hand over the dancing blue-white flames and dropped the slip over the top. It was engulfed within seconds and disappeared, the fire shooting up and turning red for a brief moment afterwards.  
  
"Isn't someone going to get burned by touching that thing?" Ron squeaked, watching as Pansy Parkinson dropped her name in and nearly got her hand burned.  
  
"It's probably just bewitched fire so even if you do touch it, you won't get burned," said Hermione.  
  
"I'll take your word for it."  
  
"So the Gryffindors' most famous, most respected member is keeping his toes out of this one?" sneered Parkinson with such a big grin on her face Harry had half a mind to wipe it off. He gave her a heated look but she chose to ignore it. "Don't want to mess up that already scarred face of yours any further?"  
  
"In your case, if anything manages to happen to it, it'll only look better," said Harry, making the entrance hall ring with the Gryffindors' laughter.  
  
"Go on, Potter! Enter your name!" said Millicent Bulstrode, walking behind Goyle down from the marble staircase.  
  
"Or you think it's not worth your time since we're all more worthy of bringing the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts, anyway?" said Crabbe.  
  
"Crabbe speaks!" said Harry, sounding shocked and clapping a hand to his cheek. "You're just trying to get me to enter and I don't want to," he then said.  
  
"Of course we're trying to get you to enter, you stupid git," said Goyle. "Been planning it since --" but he was cut short by a jab in the ribs by Malfoy standing next to him.  
  
"Really," said Harry flatly.  
  
But it seemed their plan was working a little better than they intended. Ron, Ginny, James, Craig... even a bunch of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were staring hopefully at Harry. He took a deep breath, folding his arms but it wasn't working; every non-Slytherin was obviously hoping he would enter because no one but them wanted a Slytherin champion. Mr. Malfoy didn't happen to have a way of buying his son entry into the tournament, did he? thought Harry, shaking his head at the very thought.  
  
It would be quite a rash decision if Harry did enter, having told everyone for the past several months that he had absolutely no intention of doing so... At the end of Harry's words, Professor McGonagall's footsteps could be heard coming towards them and when she spotted everyone looking at him, she gave them all a sharp look indeed and Harry a commiserating one.  
  
"Oh, please," she said exasperatedly, "leave Potter alone. If he doesn't want to enter, he doesn't want to enter and trust me, once his mind is set on something there is absolutely no changing it," and she stormed off into the Great Hall.  
  
"Look!" said Parkinson when Professor McGonagall was out of earshot, "even she wants you to enter!"  
  
Harry knew perfectly well that Professor McGonagall meant exactly what she said and that Parkinson was only trying to twist it but it made him angrier all the same.  
  
"All the glory coming back to Slytherin -- not Gryffindor anymore -- once one of us gets that cup," said Malfoy, shaking his head deeply.  
  
"Glory?" said Hermione in disgust, "Slytherin? Excuse me, but which house has won the cup for the past six years? And not mention the year that Harry got an Order of Merlin -- FIRST CLASS," she shouted scathingly.  
  
"We're going to get it this year, too, mind you," said Craig just as scathingly. "Winning that tournament isn't going to award you any points towards the cup. There's no Professor Snape to take hideous amounts of points from us. This year it's just brains, Malfoy, just brains, and you lot haven't got any."  
  
Malfoy gave a derisive laugh.  
  
"It's all Potter!" he spat. "Potter won you all your Quidditch games. Potter got you several hundred points the end of each year, letting you win the House Cup. And the Mudblood's winning you all the points in class because she spends her life in the library! May I remind you that Slytherin had won the House Cup for the seven years before he came to this school."  
  
Harry was getting quite angry and telling himself to calm down was no longer working. Raides must have sensed this because she stood slightly taller and moved herself next to his hand, ready to spring into action at any moment. When Harry looked down at her, she looked delighted. But he did take a fast step over to Hermione and grab her before she was able to reach Malfoy and his other hand was on Ron's raised wand. Ron reluctantly put it back down.  
  
"Go on, Weasley, curse me!"  
  
"I figure you'd be scared of ME by now, Malfoy," said Harry, "what with all those close brushes we've been having. Didn't manage to get your Death Eater of a father involved yet? Or are you just frightened? Oh, that's right, Slytherins -- aren't the brave ones... You do remember that detention in our first year? When you saw Professor Quirrel after he had been drinking unicorn blood? You ran flat-out, right with Fang. Wonder if you'd do the same if I did that, wearing a black cloak?" Harry joked, chuckling lightly.  
  
The look on Malfoy's pointed face, having gone slightly paler, clearly showed that he just recalled the scene but he contorted his face into a look of anger again, trying his best to hide it and failing, in Harry's opinion.  
  
"Scared of you? Ha --" said Malfoy, his upper lip curling.  
  
"Fine," barked Harry through gritted teeth. "I'll enter my name, and you know what? I'm going to get my name called and you know it."  
  
"But Harry --" Hermione began.  
  
Harry wanted to get back at Malfoy for once... for all and there was one very simple thing he could do this time to do it. But there was no denying Malfoy was right. Every consecutive year, Harry had given Gryffindor a large amount of House points from Quidditch... from getting into loads of trouble and then saving lives at the end of each school year... (which consequently, got him out of trouble).  
  
Beating Beauxbatons and Durmstrang in the Triwizard Tournament -- with no help from Death Eaters trying to see him through it to the end -- would definitely be something.  
  
Making up his mind in an instant, Harry pulled out his wand, conjured up a piece of parchment, having absolutely no idea how he did it, and then wrote Harry Potter -- Hogwarts on it with merely his finger. He then threw the piece of parchment in the air, jabbed it with his wand and it darted across the room, stopping right over the Goblet of Fire and then falling right into it. Everyone was staring at him again. 


	25. Test of Moods

Chapter 25: TEST OF MOODS  
  
All the Gryffindors except Harry exchanged shocked looks. Harry, the single most stubborn seventeen-year-old about not entering his or her name into the goblet had just done so just to prove himself against Malfoy.  
  
"I'm hungry, let's go eat," said Harry shortly, ignoring them, and Raides, with a truly evil glance at Malfoy, followed him into the Great Hall.  
  
Having seen the Great Hall during Halloween six times before, there wasn't anything unusual this time around. The regular candles that littered the air were replaced by pumpkins. Raides snarled at one that reminded her of, well, her.  
  
Harry took a seat at the Gryffindor table, Raides curling up on the floor behind him, and was shortly joined by Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Craig and James.  
  
"Harry what was that all about," said Hermione, her voice shaking slightly when they all sat down.  
  
"My thoughts exactly," said Ginny. "Come on, Harry. You didn't want to enter for MONTHS and you just go ahead and do it just to get back at Malfoy?"  
  
Harry never knew Ginny to be taking part in his personal dilemmas, she usually left that for her brother, let alone even knowing about them.  
  
"What, are you two talking to her about me now, too?" Harry asked. "But now everyone should be happy now that I've put my name in. And stop staring at me, it's giving me the creeps."  
  
"Harry, come clean, what is it?" asked Ron.  
  
Harry couldn't pinpoint it either but he knew that if it was this time last year, he would not have done what he had done just now. On the other hand, he'd not been hiding anything too serious that was greatly affecting his life. And furthermore, he couldn't see a thing wrong with himself. What was Ron playing at? Harry asked himself...  
  
"You're kidding, right?"  
  
"What d'you mean 'kidding?' For crying out loud, you've been refusing entry into the tournament since I mentioned it to you, I'd have thought -- and everyone else, like Dumbledore, Cho and Sirius -- you wouldn't want to be involved again after how horrible it was the first time around."  
  
Ron said all this very quickly.  
  
"So?"  
  
Filch had come in at that point, the goblet in one hand and the stool in the other. He was carrying it up the Hall and placed it in front of Dumbledore's empty chair when he reached the staff table. A moment later, Percy strode in, Bagman at his side with Madam Maxime and, reluctantly, Karkaroff taking up the rear. Karkaroff seemed to be keeping his distance from Madam Maxime and the side of her face that had to look at him was twitching every now and then. Harry had the distinct feeling that she hated him for something and it seemed to be unsettling Karkaroff.  
  
All through the Halloween feast, Harry was jumpy and irritable and generally hard to talk to. His attention was up at the staff table in the Goblet of Fire where he knew his name would be coming out as soon as everyone finished eating. Everyone was much slower to eat this night than last and, being the second feast in two days with lots of food, lots of drink and lots of Harry snapping, it was hardly a surprise.  
  
Dumbledore had come in somewhere in the middle of the feast with Professor McGonagall and Hagrid. Dumbledore seemed to have purposely went between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables, taking the time to speak with Dudley for a short moment before continuing up. Harry had a quick but horrible thought that Dumbledore, too, believed Dudley had been sorted into the wrong house.  
  
At long last, when all the plates had cleared and everyone quickly silenced themselves, Dumbledore rose to his feet. Hermione was giving Harry a commiserating look as he stared up at the goblet, much like what everyone else was doing.  
  
"The goblet is almost ready to make it's decisions for champions for each school, I estimate about two minutes," said Dumbledore. "Now, when I call out the champions' names, if they would please come up to the front of the Hall, go along the staff table and enter through the door into the next chamber." He pointed a long finger toward the door behind the staff table. "There, you will receive instructions for the first task. Mr. Potter, the dragon made of light, if you will," he added, glancing sidelong at Harry and winking at Professor McGonagall's red face.  
  
Dumbledore took out his wand and sweeped it across his front and at once, every candle in the great -- every single one -- was extinguished. Harry barely had enough light coming from the goblet to know that he wasn't hitting anyone on the head with the Staff of Cybele. But eventually, the light dragon was once again soaring overhead to many gasps and stares of students, foreign and local alike. It was even more magnficient inside the Great Hall, lighting up the walls and the tops of students' heads as it passed, making a great big figure eight. The dragon was so large and the Hall so tiny that it was wrapped around twice.  
  
The light Goblet of Fire's blue-white flames were miniscule in comparison to the tremendous light given forth by the dragon overhead. Even so, everyone was watching and waiting, some turning slightly blue from forgetting to breathe. Dean Thomas kept checking his watch.  
  
"C'mon already," hissed Susan Bones from the next table just as someone over at the Slytherin table muttered something very rude under his breath.  
  
"It didn't take this long last time, did it?" said Neville.  
  
"Whatever," said Harry. "I just wish it'd hurry up!"  
  
"So you can make a prat of yourself in front of the whole school?" Hermione muttered.  
  
Harry shot her a venomous look and said, "Nobody asked you."  
  
Hermione folded her arms and looked back up at the goblet with everyone else.  
  
Suddenly, the flames inside the Goblet of Fire turned red again and sparks were emitting from it. A second later, a burst of flame rose into the air and a scorched piece of parchment flew out of it -- those who hadn't seen this three years ago (and some who had) gasped. Dumbledore reached a hand out to grab the parchment.  
  
"The champion for Durmstrang," said Dumbledore in a loud, clear voice, "will be Sebastian Leon."  
  
"Who?" said Ron, but his next words were drowned out as an explosion of applause broke out over the Slytherin table where all the Durmstrang students were sitting.  
  
A boy that looked more like he was in his twenties than his teens stood up from the Slytherin table. Sebastian had dark hair, a gaunt but fairly handsome face and, unlike the rest of his classmates, no pimples.  
  
"He's the Durmstrang heart throb, that one," said Hermione.  
  
"Going to fall in love with him like you fell in love with Viktor Krum?" said Ron testily.  
  
"Oh shut up," said Hermione.  
  
Sebastian walked proudly up to the staff table, turned right, walked along it and exited through the door behind it.  
  
"Excellent, Sebastian!" thundered Karkaroff so amazingly loudly that even the people outside the castle could hear him. This caused Madam Maxime to give him such a heated look that even Professor Snape would have been frightened. Karkaroff quickly desisted his ravenous clapping and sat down.  
  
When the clapping, stomping and chatting died away, everyone began looking attentively at the goblet again which, not a moment too soon, had it's flames go red once again.  
  
"The champion for Beauxbatons," said Dumbledore, "will be Adrianne Delacour!"  
  
Harry saw Professor Delacour up at the staff table stand up, beaming to her young sister, and start to clap particularly loudly.  
  
"Will you look at that," said Ron quietly, pointing at two girls Adrianne had been talking with -- but they didn't see because they weren't exactly looking up.  
  
The two of them and one farther down the table were all overcome by tears and Harry didn't think they were tears of joy. One of them was simply complaining that she broke a nail but Harry suspected it was because she hit the table: the tips of her fingers were red and there were claw marks.  
  
Adrianne, too, disappeared into the side chamber and silence fell, once again, this time so still Harry could make hear the sounds of the dragon part the air as it soared overhead. The Hogwarts champion now, and a handful already knew who it was going to be. Harry felt extremely pleased with himself; when his name came out, the Great Hall was going to explode with applause (all except for the Slytherins, of course).  
  
And the flames of the Goblet of Fire glowed red once more, showering the nearby area with sparks and a tongue of flame burst into the air, sending a final piece of parchment fluttering to the top of the table. Even Dumbledore's hand was shaking, Harry saw. But, fingers nearly missing it, he grasped the piece of parchment on the table, missing it as it flew through the air. Dumbledore's face glowed and there was a sparkle in his eyes as he read for all to hear.  
  
"And the Hogwarts champion," he called, grinning so broadly that he almost couldn't speak, "is Harry Potter!"  
  
When the roar of applause filled Harry's ears to the point of making them hurt, it was like someone switched a dial inside of him. A minute ago, he would have been jumping for joy but now, now it was like someone had just pulled the shades off his eyes and told him to go live with dementors, hearing his mother's screams replayed in his head until his dying day. And this showed very loudly on his face as evident by the look of nothing short of absolute terror on Ron's, Hermione's and Ginny's face.  
  
"Go up, Harry, go on," said Hermione, trying her best to sound comforting. "You don't have a choice..."  
  
"Yeah, I don't have a choice," said Harry, trying to find composure, "but I could always kill myself..."  
  
"Do not -- say that. You go up there, get into the tournament and we're going straight to your dormitory to talk."  
  
Harry shook his head madly, put his hands on the table and, feeling weak in the knees, stood up.  
  
Every single pair of hands along his path tried to shake one of his out or pat him on the back and many people stood up to clap. Several people were chanting his name but none of this was of any help: he still felt like someone had told him to go relive his parents' deaths again. And after what felt like several hours, he had reached the side chamber and the door leading into it, Hagrid along with several other professors congratulating him as he passed.  
  
"Excellent!" Dumbledore called happily, trying and failing miserably to make himself heard over all the noise.  
  
The small chamber was full of many paintings of witches and wizards. A fire was roaring in a fireplace opposite the door, adding a nice touch to the coziness. Harry had been in here before when he had been selected as the fourth champion but the atmosphere from then to now was hardly any different -- at least, for him.  
  
Adrianne Delacour and Sebastian Leon were standing around the fire and at least this time they were about his height and not horribly intimidating. Sebastian was positively beaming, looking overly happy and not realizing that the tournament itself was likely to tear him to pieces, Harry thought, him being so proud of himself and everything...  
  
Adrianne was smiling for the moment she saw Harry but hadn't yet read the look on his face.  
  
"What is wrong?" she asked him, cocking her head and sounding sincere.  
  
Harry didn't know what to say, so he sat on a chair next to the mantelpiece, leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands. "Don't ask," he said gloomily, "just don't ask."  
  
At this, Sebastian seemed to lose some of his own composure.  
  
"Are you not proud to bring glory to Hogwarts?" he said, clearly wondering how Harry could not be one hundred percent proud to be bestowed the honor of being Hogwarts' very own, wonderful champion.  
  
Harry felt like smacking him, but restrained himself.  
  
A load of footsteps echoed into the chamber from the Great Hall and Ludo Bagman joined the three of them, accompanied by Percy. He looked down at the incredibly unhappy face in which is own boyish grin dulled for a moment but then he smiled once more and said, "Why the long face, Harry? C'mon! This time you're prepared!"  
  
Harry looked up at him, gave him a short grin that satisfied Bagman and began looking at his own feet again.  
  
The door opened once more, this time letting Madam Maxime and, looking very distressed at having to be so near her, Karkaroff.  
  
"Vell done, 'Arry," said Madam Maxime. "I knew from your performance during ze last tournament zat you 'ad eet." She was smiling, evidently trying to give him some friendly confidence.  
  
Karkaroff did no such thing.  
  
"She is right, you know, Harry!" said Bagman.  
  
Even Percy joined in.  
  
"Things are looking up, Harry!" he said, trying his best to drop his usual strictly professional manner. "No Dark wizards put your name in the goblet this time, did they?"  
  
"Maybe," said Harry.  
  
Everyone chose to ignore this profound word but Percy particular seemed to be highly affronted. They didn't seem to understand and Harry didn't have the heart to tell them why he had put his name in the goblet in the first place. He was further less likely to tell them of the shock he was now experiencing now that the reality of what he had done had time to sink in.  
  
Bagman, to relieve his feeling of unease that was undoubtedly coming from Harry, began rolling on the balls of his feet. "Instructions!" he barked and Harry jumped.  
  
"Yes, yes," said Percy. He let out a cough and was suddenly fumbling with a piece of parchment inside his robes. "The first task is engineered to put your daring to the test," he said, reading off of it and then turning to face Harry, Sebastian and Adrianne, "and so we're not going to be telling you what it is. At the risk of repeating Mr. Crouch's words --" and he let out a short cough, evidently still proud of Mr. Crouch even though he was now dead "-- courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality as I'm sure, well...  
  
"The first task will take place on November the twenty-eighth in front of the staff, students and the judges.  
  
"You are, of course, not allowed to ask for or accept help of any kind from teacher or student alike," Percy went on, his eyes flickering towards Bagman who gave a short, guilty laugh, "to complete any task in the tournament."  
  
Bagman had tried to help Harry but he had refused each time. It would seem Percy since found out, though he didn't wish to make a scene.  
  
"You will face the first challenge armed with only your wand, which will be tested shortly to make sure it is in full working order. Information on the second task will be given when the first one is over. Last but not least, owing to the very demanding and time-consuming nature of the Triwizard Tournament, all champions are exempt from end-of-year exams."  
  
Adrianne looked delighted to hear this but there was a noticeable slouch to Sebastian's appearance. Harry was forcefully reminded of Hermione.  
  
Percy turned to Dumbledore who had just entered the room.  
  
"That is everything, isn't it?" he said.  
  
"Indeed," said Dumbledore, glancing curiously at Harry. Not wanting to get involved at the moment, he too chose to ignore it and turned to Karkaroff and Madam Maxime. "So then, can I interest the two of you in a nightcap? Harry, may I suggest you head back to your common room to celebrate. I hardly think, owing to the fact that I never managed to get everyone to quiet down, that anyone in Gryffindor Tower will be sleeping tonight," he said, his eyes twinkling.  
  
"Go on, Adrianne," said Madam Maxime kindly just as Karkaroff motioned for Sebastian to follow him, "back to ze carriage to celebrate vith everyone."  
  
Harry, wanting to melt away, slouched out of the chamber and into the Great Hall after everyone else. The light dragon was still flying about overhead and Raides was waiting for him, having perched herself atop the middle of the staff table. He grunted, she transformed into the staff and Harry removed the dragon. Karkaroff was the last one to exit the Hall, looking uncertainly at the enormous back of Madam Maxime.  
  
Feeling his spirits at an all time low and wanting to be alone in the deserted Great Hall, Harry didn't even let Raides transform back into the great lion; he clutched her tight in his hand and deactivated her. She lay stiff, lifeless, dead in his hand, unable to speak, think or, for that matter, unable to do anything but magic.  
  
Looking all around as he slowly walked between the empty Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables, he could see in his mind's eye Ron, Hermione, Ginny and himself along with everyone else waiting, silent, tense when someone else's -- anyone else's -- name would come flying out of the goblet. At this point, he would have been happy if even Malfoy was in the tournament. Harry stopped walking and watched as the images unfolded before his eyes.  
  
Standing next to him, nothing but a ghost in his head, was the image of Ron sitting down, a great big smile on his freckled face and biting his lip so hard that Harry thought it was going to bleed. The sound of everyone's bated breath was echoed, as though distant and the ceiling of the Hall was a hundred feet in the air. And there, one seat down, was himself, bright-eyed, smiling and shaking with excitement, looking hopefully at Ron while all of Ron's fingers, his legs and his eyes were crossed.  
  
Harry watched as his shadow was hardly able to contain himself with Hermione at his other side and then, suddenly, Dumbledore called "And the Hogwarts champion will be... Ronald Weasley!" Ron stood up and Harry began clapping so hard that his hands instantly turned as red as Ron's face. Hermione and Ginny had both given Ron a hug, Harry gave him a friendly pat on the back and, standing to his full height, Ron walked proudly up to the top of the Hall. The Gryffindor Table exploded into ravenous clapping and stomping, yelling themselves hoarse.  
  
But then Harry looked down and the shadow of everyone simply vanished. The sounds became quieter and quieter as though from further away until he couldn't hear anything but the sound of his own breath. He started his walk again and, in no time at all, found himself in front of the Fat Lady.  
  
"Hogwarts champion again?" she said, red in the face and a cup that Harry strongly suspected was of rum in her hand.  
  
"Priscus Veneficus," said Harry.  
  
"Tut! And you're hardly any happier than last time!" she shouted, swinging forward to admit him as Harry put his hands over his ears to prepare for the roar from inside.  
  
Even with his hands clamped over his ears, he was almost blown backwards.  
  
"Harry!" shrieked several people the instant he'd been spotted.  
  
"Hogwarts champion! Again! And this time you entered yourself!"  
  
"You did it! Well, you had to know!"  
  
"Of course you knew the moment you entered your name, you were gonna be called!"  
  
"Where's Ron and Hermione?" said Harry, his face mirroring Percy's usual one.  
  
At that instant, someone grabbed his hand and pulled him through the crowd of hands, bodies, Gryffindor flags trying to get wrapped around him, food and drink. Without Fred and George there was nothing from the kitchens, unfortunately. He turned to see Hermione looking gravely at him but he was thankful she was pulling him away from the crowd of very unwanted cheers and yells. Ron was already sitting on his own four-post bed, his cloak slung over the canopy. Harry had the impression they were preparing for his arrival.  
  
"Okay," said Ron, once they all sat down, "explain."  
  
Harry took off his cloak and threw it in the middle of the circular room. He sat on the edge of his bed, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees once again but this time he folded his hands. Harry didn't stay that way very long. After a few seconds of trying to think of what to explain, he let his left arm dangle limp and rested his chin on his right palm but didn't stay very long like that, either, having switched hands just two seconds later. Then he held his forehead up with the palm of his hand and a moment later, held it up with both palms, his eyes now closed. Now he was running both of his hands anxiously through his untidy, black hair and back around to his neck, holding that up with his palms.  
  
The only words he had decided on saying were, "I don't know."  
  
"What d'you mean 'you don't know?'" said Ron, both disgusted and disbelievingly. "You were telling everyone -- for months -- that you didn't want to enter and I would have to agree after what happened last time. Suddenly, one joke from Malfoy and you're happily -- or at least I think, none of us sure could tell from the way you were acting -- entering your name with who knows what spell. We sure didn't learn those in class!" he shouted incredulously.  
  
"What do you want from me!" Harry barked hotly, his sadness leaving him in an instant. "I don't know, okay?" he said, shaking slightly with anger.  
  
"What are you yelling at him for?" said Hermione, her voice higher than usual, too.  
  
"Oh that's great, both of you get on my case."  
  
"Get on your case, yes, that's what we're trying to do, Harry." Harry got the sarcasm but chose to ignore it.  
  
"I can easily tell. And isn't this familiar? We were all chatting happily when I told you lot I can --"  
  
"It's almost like you have the -- the --"  
  
"The what?" said Harry, daring Ron to say it.  
  
"The You-Know-What!" shouted Ron in a high pitched voice.  
  
"Now we have another Voldemort?" said Harry scathingly. "Go on, I thought that once earlier. But how? How can I?"  
  
"Harry --" said Hermione.  
  
"Forget it," said Harry, throwing himself backwards on his four-poster, "just go, you aren't helping any."  
  
Ron shot Harry an extremely angry look and when he took a step closer to Harry, who's eyes were now closed, Hermione grabbed his arm and pulled him back.  
  
"C'mon, Ron," she said testily. "If he doesn't want us, let him sit there and figure it all out himself. He sure seems to like doing that lately."  
  
Harry didn't watch her go but quickly found himself highly upset and saddened again as was evident by the sniffles and the watering at his eyes. The Mark of Ancients... How could it be back? He'd been there when it was removed, he hadn't been able to make his skin glow that perfect white nor even glitter golden since that day.  
  
But something just didn't tick right. He layed there, for a good five minutes, listening, but not really paying attention, to the noises coming from down the spiral staircase and trying to make his skin glitter or show some sign, any sign, of the Mark of Ancients. Balling his hands into fists, squinting his eyes, feeling his arms from wrist to shoulder through his robes... nothing... After he figured it wasn't going to happen, he simply stopped.  
  
Things didn't exactly seem to be going his way. He'd blown off Ron and Hermione successfully once now and there weren't any doubts in his mind that it would happen again... and again, and again and still more times until they didn't want to come back at all. This had, unfortunately, happened in his fifth year when the Mark of Ancients was running through his veins. Harry had, in a long series of unnerving mood swings, warded off all his friends. Hermione went off crying and Ron stalked away angry. He had no intention whatsoever of repeating the experience, though the way things were going, it looked like if he didn't come up with something quick, it would be repeating itself all over again. If it did happen again, this time at least he didn't think he'd be tricked into thinking he had a long lost sister that would later only turn out to be a ploy on his already saturated head. Also, at least now he had Sirius to talk to as last time Sirius was in Azkaban.  
  
Currently, there wasn't much for Harry to do. It was either go down into the common room and be badgered by all the celebration-happy people, stay where he was and sulk, or go find Ron and Hermione and try his hand at an apology. None of the options looked very appealing but as the only other one was sleep, he thought he'd get a head start on how he would apologize to Ron and Hermione tomorrow morning -- because he definitely wanted to do that, though he couldn't bring himself to as of now.  
  
And then his mind fell on something even more unpleasant: the dream. Feeling miserable through and through, he had a strong feeling it was going to run across his eyes when they closed to drift him off to sleep. His eyes rolling in disgust, Harry found himself changing into pajamas to prepare for sleep and he could never recall dreading it so much. Maybe if he did it now he'd have the dream while everyone was still celebrating -- without their person to celebrate with -- no one would hear him if he happened to... scream?  
  
His insides writhed guiltily. He would have to tell someone especially considering there was a great chance, with them in the same room as him, they'd hear him if he did anything. What was he going to say otherwise?  
  
"Oh, no, I just put my hand on a pin. I'm okay, really."  
  
"Your hand's not bleeding."  
  
But that sounded very dumb in his head alone. Perhaps --  
  
"I'm okay, it was just a nightmare."  
  
"Harry, you never have nightmares where you wake up screaming. It sounded like you were about to be killed."  
  
And that wasn't much better. What about --  
  
"That was just a dream about -- about -- er -- it was -- and I --"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
Only two people at Hogwarts would fit the bill. Yes, thought Harry, I'll just... just keep it quiet until I have it and then, then I'll tell. He would like to have used someone's once-great advice where they said "just put it out of your mind," but now he knew better. It was better to tell, better to not be lazy, because every time he hadn't gotten something off his chest, it stayed on it and ate through it. 


	26. The Weighing of the Wands

Chapter 26: THE WEIGHING OF THE WANDS  
  
As per his untimely prediction, it was the middle of the night when it happened.  
  
"So long," said Voldemort softly, raising his wand before shouting "Avada Kedavra!" pointing it at the baby Harry.  
  
And Harry found himself with Ron, Dean, Neville and Seamus staring at him. Ron was standing at his side, having opened the curtains and was looking down at him very uneasily. Harry himself was sitting up, several beads of sweat lining his forehead. Dean, Neville and Seamus didn't say anything and, judging by the expression on Ron's face, Harry had screamed particularly loud...  
  
But Harry had the distinct feeling they thought he had woken up from some other kind of dream... Perhaps they were a little more worried than they should be? Afterall, it had happened before that Harry had been woken up from a dream involving Voldemort himself...  
  
"Harry?" Ron breathed very anxiously, his hand still on the drawn curtains and his mouth hanging open.  
  
Harry let himself fall heavily onto his pillow; there was just no escaping it.  
  
"It wasn't Voldemort," he began, before plunging into the entire dream, from his dad trying to fight off Voldemort to the flash of green light that repeatedly woke him up.  
  
When he finished, Ron was sitting on his four-poster again.  
  
"I've been having it since the end of last year when I got back to the Dursleys' house," Harry told them all, "and... it's not pleasant."  
  
"I see," said Ron weakly. "I-is there anything anyone can do? I mean --"  
  
"What's anyone going to do, Ron," said Harry gloomily, "give me a hanky and tell me to cry my heart out over my dead parents?"  
  
Ron was gaping at him, lost for words -- but it wasn't for lack of trying. He did open his mouth several times, emitting nothing but a few strangled words, and then he closed it. Ron watched helplessly as Harry reached over for the Order of Merlin plaque calling out to him and grabbed it. It did very little, but what it did do gave him the strength to pull the covers back over himself and say, "Just don't tell anyone, okay? The last thing I need is for Malfoy or Dudley to get word of this."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"All right."  
  
"No problem."  
  
"Sure."  
  
But fifteen minutes later, when Ron, Neville, Dean and Seamus were all sleeping, Harry found that he couldn't. Something was still nagging, biting and tearing at him and it was only when he rolled over, staring unblinkingly at the plaque with his name on it did the reason come to him.  
  
It felt shameful to admit it to himself but he wanted something like a -- someone like a mother but couldn't bring himself to tell Mrs. Weasley. The last time she had found out something similar to this, she was having kittens about him. Someone he could confide in, someone that wouldn't make him feel like an idiot if he had to tell something very personal to and most importantly, someone that understood him. The answer, of course, came to Harry immediately.  
  
"Cho," he whispered to himself, crawling out of bed, snatching up that pen, parchment, his cloak and putting his shoes on.  
  
The Owlery situation atop the West Tower was cold and drafty, as none of the windows had glass in them, and the floor was littered with owl droppings. I can't stand it, he thought to himself, I have to tell her. She already knew but he wanted to tell her anyway and perhaps he would tell her about what happened with him entering his name in the Goblet of Fire, as well... Ron and Hermione know about that but there were some things they just didn't understand. Harry didn't exactly want Cho's pity but something in him said that wouldn't be the kind of letter he would get back and he liked to be able to think that.  
  
As far as getting to the Owlery without getting caught out of bed, for this task he looked at the elaborate staff resembling a lion that was lying across his trunk at the foot of his bed. He grabbed it and immediately Raides sprang to life, her tail wagging and the crystal vanishing from the mouth.  
  
"Good evening," she said brightly, then, watching Harry frown, she stopped smiling. And then she suddenly look horrified and said, "Oh, not again --"  
  
"Yes," Harry whispered, putting Raides back down, stuffing the pen and parchment in the pockets of his cloak and picking her up again. "Look, I need to get to the Owlery, and seeing as how I can't Disapparate anymore..."  
  
"And you don't have your dad's cloak anymore," said Raides, now also frowning. "But you can still make yourself invisible. 'Occare' if I remember correctly."  
  
"How can you rememeber spells and nothing about your past?" said Harry. "I don't get it."  
  
"Probably the same way you were able to use all those spells when you had the Mark of Ancients and had no idea how you did it," said Raides, shaking her tail in what looked like a strange shrug.  
  
"Anyway," said Harry, trying to forget about it. "Occare!" he hissed under his breath and at that same instant, he could no longer see his hand in front of his face as he turned it or the staff in his other hand. "So this is how Dumbledore spied on me when I was looking at the Mirror of Erised. I didn't ever see him because he was invisible and one night, he turned up and scared me half to death. Well, so much for needing my dad's cloak," Harry commented grimly. "Least now I don't have to worry about it slipping off of me but don't get me wrong, I still miss it," he added quickly, hearing Raides start to laugh. "It was my dad's after all, and I don't exactly have a lot to remember him by."  
  
Raides stopped laughing rather quickly. As beastly an appearance she had, she wasn't without lack of emotions for -- for some things...  
  
It was admittedly much easier to walk around the castle unseen without having to hold a cloak on your head and it was great to have use of his hands even if all they did was dangle limp at his sides. When he reached his destination, shivering because of how drafty it was, he pulled his cloak closer to himself, though it didn't help much, and the pen was cutting into his side. All over the floor were the skeletons of rats and voles and some live ones that were enjoying their last days before being eaten.  
  
Just about all of the owls were sleeping, though occasionally some heads swiveled on their bodies to hear Harry's footsteps, him still being invisible, as he moved around the stone, circular room to find Hedwig. He found her perched comfortably between a barn owl and Ron's owl, Pig. They hadn't become friends, had they? Harry thought incredulously.  
  
"Okay now how do I make myself visible?" he asked Raides.  
  
"'Appare' should do it."  
  
"Appare!" and that same instant, Hedwig fell off her perch, startled at Harry's sudden appearance.  
  
She hooted angrily and fluttered back onto where she had been sitting.  
  
"I just need you to deliver a letter to Cho for me, all right?" Harry asked her, looking hopeful.  
  
She showed him her tail for a brief moment before finally giving in to Harry's continued pleas ("Please, Hedwig?") and fluttered onto his knee as he sat down against the wall in a relatively dropping-free area. Dear Cho, he wrote then paused but after a good minute, it was like the inside of him was telling him what to write and his hand just moved accordingly.  
  
I did something really stupid yesterday morning. Naturally, all along everyone's been asking me if I put my name in the Goblet of Fire, even some of the professors, and you can imagine how irritating that is. I was in such a bad mood all yesterday from my first class to my last one. And then in the entrance hall while waiting to go eat (since we got out of class early), Ron, Hermione and I found Malfoy. He cracked a joke about both of them and when he got to me, well let's just say I lost it and I put my name in the goblet just to get back at him.  
  
Don't ask, I can't answer it myself. All the Slytherins did and I was just so angry. You don't have to guess that my name got called out of it, Dumbledore was smiling when he read it. Then I just switched into this horrified trance and told off Ron and Hermione just last night. To make matters worse, I woke up from that stupid dream in the middle of the night and now Ron, Dean, Neville and Seamus know. I'm gonna tell Hermione later if Ron doesn't do it first.  
  
For good measure, Harry added the bit about Karkaroff being afraid of Madam Maxime, Professor Delacour's sister being in the tournament, how he thinks he's going to really hate Sebastian Leon and how Raides is scaring Peeves to death lately. He didn't want to sound to soppy, like he really missed her. Although, he figured he shouldn't, he hadn't held himself back the last time he had seen Cho, having had wrapped his arms around her. Then one more thing came to him to put down.  
  
I really like writing to you. It's the only thing besides Ron and Hermione that's keeping my head on straight. This year is going to be terrible. Cheers.  
  
His hand shook slightly and there was a weak smile on his face as he finished it with Love, Harry. Giving it the once-over, Harry was delighted with it.  
  
"You've been good to me lately, Hedwig," he said to her, "even though I haven't been exactly... appreciative. I'll give you some bacon when you get back? And I'll snatch some for the next seven days."  
  
She hooted once more, nipping his hand affectionately and, the letter safely attached to her leg, she soared out of an open window. Harry watched her go, a great weight settling in his stomach as he was brought back to the unpleasantness that was the reality of the Triwizard Tournament ahead of him. On his way back to Gryffindor Tower, Harry realized that he hadn't ever told Sirius about the dream. He figured he would conveniently forget to mention this if Ron or Hermione asked him about it and he thought that they might think that telling Cho about it was enough. Truth be told, so did Harry.  
  
Hermione wasn't speaking to Harry the following morning at breakfast and Ron was avoiding his eyes. Harry silently felt he deserved the silent treatment that Hermione was giving him but didn't expect Ron to do the same. Harry did wake up feeling perfectly happy despite the huge lump in his stomach that he knew would steadily grow bigger as November the twenty-eighth approached. Ginny must have spotted all of this because she stopped talking to Neville and instead asked her brother something.  
  
"Ron, is there a reason you haven't said a single word to Harry all morning?"  
  
For the first time all morning, Ron looked at Harry but he seemed to forget he was in a room full of people and giving looks of extreme anxiousness didn't smooth over too well in this kind of situation.  
  
"Harry?" said Ginny curiously. "Ron? I-is there something --?"  
  
Hermione then finally seemed to notice something was amiss.  
  
"Yes, Ron," she said bossily, not looking at neither him nor Harry but at her toast, "is there something?"  
  
Harry, who'd been trying to look innocent and had been paying attention to his eggs, let his shoulders drop, his fork, while still clutched in his hand, fall to his plate and exhaled heavily. Ron finally spoke.  
  
"You're going to tell her?" he whispered in Harry's ear.  
  
Ginny was looking curiously between the two of them.  
  
"Of course I'm going to tell her," Harry said aloud.  
  
"Tell who what?" said Hermione and Ginny together.  
  
Harry surprised himself by smiling but Ron continued to look very anxious.  
  
"Fine then, I'll tell both of you," said Harry. "But not here, if the common room is quiet or somewhere else if it's not --"  
  
"I knew it!" said Hermione at once, a look of triumph over her face. "I knew --"  
  
"Oh shut up... or I won't tell you," said Harry.  
  
Hermione looked particularly angry for a few seconds but gave up and went back to her toast. When the four of them finished eating, they all followed Harry back to the Gryffindor common room, Ron looking very anxious indeed, partially because he was the only one who knew what was coming. Now, though, Harry thought he'd been overplaying the dream. It wasn't really that bad, not any worse than having a normal nightmare... was it?  
  
Lots of people's parents die when their kids are young, Harry thought, why should my situation be any different? Because you've been living with the Dursleys, sparked a voice in the back of his head, and someone's wanted you dead since the second you were born.  
  
Hermione and Ginny kept trying to ask him questions but he was only half listening, more interested in the conversation he was having with himself. He really wanted to know if he was making a bigger deal out of it than he should be. It wasn't that big, was it? But Ron sure looked frightened when Harry had finished and Cho had been tearing when he told her about it. But then Harry realized that Cho cared a great deal about him and small things, well... And Ron had heard him screaming and Harry hadn't heard it himself. Well, he supposed he'd screamed, he never actually heard himself do it. The flash of green light, the cold, pitiless red eyes telling him he was going to die... that's what woke him up, not the sound of his own voice.  
  
"Priscus Veneficus," said Ron, snapping Harry back to reality.  
  
The common room was empty and they didn't have to resort going back up to Harry's and Ron's dormitory. Harry stood up during the explanation, pacing back and forth nervously despite his assessment that the dream wasn't all too bad. Even so, Hermione and Ginny looked horrorstruck. Ron made sure to add the bit about Harry screaming so loud that his ears hurt.  
  
"I wonder if there's any reason I have it now when I've never had it before?" Harry added after there had been silence for a good few minutes; Ginny had been staring at Harry while he continued to pace and eventually sat down while Hermione stared at the crackling fire across from her.  
  
"It's not that big a deal is it?" Harry said dismissively, noting their continued horrified expressions -- even Ron's, who had put his cloak down as though hearing it for the first time.  
  
"And you've had it several times before?" said Hermione, running her fingers through her bushy brown hair to calm herself down. Harry nodded. "Well, that's it!" she shouted.  
  
"What's it?" said Harry blankly.  
  
"You idiot, come on. Who wants to keep reliving their parents death over and over again!"  
  
Now that she said it, Harry felt like Voldemort had used a curse, not to just pull blood from him but to pull his very heart out of his chest. Harry had once used this to pull the Mark of Ancients out of Voldemort on accident, of course, and having no idea he did it or how until someone later told him -- because he had done it in his sleep. That first summer he had the Mark of Ancients was a strange time to say the least and very frightening. He wished to never have the manic dreams that the permanent Imperius Voldemort had attempted on Harry brought about ever again. A sick little voice in the back his brain told him that if, by some miracle, or, more properly, by some disasterous consequence, the Mark of Ancients was back, the dreams would return. But it couldn't be back. Could it?  
  
And then quite suddenly his thoughts fell on something that brought those dreams back.  
  
"The Book of Memories," he muttered.  
  
"The what?" said Ginny.  
  
"The Book of Memories," said Harry loudly. "Remember? The thing that was used to bring me back when my soul -- and the book in which Raides was imprisoned?"  
  
"W-what about it?" said Ron.  
  
"I told you this, didn't I? Whenever I touched it, it brought back those weird flashes I had that first summer with the mark except they weren't bad ones." Harry paused for a moment, and then said, "It's just strange, isn't it?"  
  
"Strange," Ron muttered under his breath to himself.  
  
"I want to find that book," said Harry firmly. "I want to know why it did that to me and if it's the reason I have this stupid dream constantly. I'm probably going to have it again tonight or tomorrow," he said angrily.  
  
Hermione seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Harry when she said, "The Mark of Ancients is not back, Harry, if that's what you're thinking. It was thoroughly removed from you. Your skin glittered gold and then glowed white and it, like, leaked off of your body and dissolved in the air just above you. And you can't make your skin do anything of the sort now, can you?"  
  
"Nope," said Harry, feeling a little better.  
  
"Just keep your head on," said Ron. "Nothing's going on this year except for a few strange mood swings. It's all nerves," Ron suggested and Harry wanted to agree, "about the Triwizard Tournament."  
  
"Right," said Harry, looking between Ron and Hermione and nodding.  
  
"Now come on, we haven't been to see Hagrid for ages," said Hermione.  
  
"Want to come, Ginny?" said Ron, turning to her and picking up his cloak. "You haven't really spoken to him a lot..."  
  
Nothing fascinating did happen until one fateful day in the Great Hall when a loud crying burst out somewhere in the middle of the Ravenclaw table. A boy and a girl, Harry knew as first years, were both seen dashing out at top speed, the girl's hand to her mouth and the boy holding her to him. Harry was reminded of the few months two years ago when he thought he had a sister. The memory brought nothing but hate.  
  
"What happened to them?" said Hermione curiously.  
  
And then, as a wave of murmurs broke out over the Great Hall, the name Christabell Florence and Addie Jungalavingi crossed his ears. Harry vaguely remembered there being two Florences but just then, Parvati Patil said that she just fainted and a second later, Harry saw someone carrying her out of the Hall.  
  
Hermione clasped a hand to her mouth as what happened reached their ears: the Dark Mark and Macnair, a Death Eater. There was only one thing that Harry could think of, the Florence's parents had been killed and the Dark Mark casted over their house. Harry felt a hot surge of hatred toward Macnair. He had tried to kill one of Hagrid's pets, a hippogriff by the name of Buckbeak. Working for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Magical Creatures at the Ministry of Magic, Macnair was the executioner. Mr. Malfoy, Harry knew, had them all in his pocket and his son having had been bitten by Buckbeak, was sure to have the hippogriff killed. But Hermione had pulled what was a miracle out of their pocket -- or rather, the front of her robes. Using Hermione's Time Turner, a magical device capable of sending the wearer back in time, which she was using for classes that year, rescued Buckbeak.  
  
Harry didn't like Macnair then and after finding out he'd been a Death Eater, didn't like him any more now.  
  
"How do they know it was him?" said Ron, jolting Harry back to his senses. "Was he caught?"  
  
"Yes," said Hermione, as a screech owl brought her a copy of the Daily Prophet and she looked at the front page. "Here, it's short, listen."  
  
THE DARK MARK CASTED OVER A HUMBLE ABODE  
  
The Florences, a Muggle family very much in touch with their wizard and witch children, were discovered with the Dark Mark over their house yesterday morning, reports Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent.  
  
"Rita..." Hermione whispered angrily.  
  
The Florences enjoy two of their children attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy while their son attends the graduate program of Laurence Patrick Hayden's school of Paladism in the United States.  
  
When Hermione finished, she looked up at Harry, who's eye was twitching.  
  
"I'm going to kill him," he said softly, "I am --"  
  
"Are you mad?" Ron burst out. "Kill Voldemort?"  
  
Harry didn't say anything, he just sat there, staring at what had to be another friend of the Florences, weeping in her seat at the Hufflepuff table. Somewhere in the back of all the mess, Harry could distinctly see Malfoy laughing with Crabbe and Goyle. Dudley, Harry was surprised to see, had moved a few seats away from them.  
  
The next week during one Potions class in which Professor Figg was reminding the class to bring gas masks for when they worked with that horribly smelling potion ingredient, Harry was longing to get away. He had remembered that Charm to make the air fresh and didn't need reminding of that smell. Raides, having gotten word from hermione, wished not to attend but Harry forced her to. It was Professor McGonagall who poked her head inside to save him.  
  
"Arabella, Potter has to have his wand checked for the tournament," she said.  
  
"Very well," Professor Figg replied. "Harry, we will be working with it at a date to be announced. Good luck!" and she bid him farewell.  
  
"You are, obviously, not allowed to use your staff in any of the tasks," said Professor McGonagall, though Harry thought she looked like she wished he could, as they walked along the corridors, Raides walking silently behind Harry. "That horrible Skeeter woman is here" -- and Harry would make it a point to tell Hermione -- "and she's going to want pictures. She is ordered by Fudge himself to keep quiet about anything nasty but you know her."  
  
"Oh, I do," said Harry, "and I think the end of her is going to come," he muttered with a smile under his breath, which made Professor McGonagall look curiously at him.  
  
Rita Skeeter was an unregistered Animagus and had been using this to ferret around Hogwarts during the last Triwizard Tournament when she had been explicitly banned from the grounds. The Slytherins had been giving her interviews and it was only when Hermione discovered her little secret did she stop... at least, until recently...  
  
"Here you go, Potter," said Professor McGonagall when they reached the familiar classroom, a fairly small one with all but three desks pushed against the walls. She left him there and walked off.  
  
Up at the back wall were the three desks, placed end to end-in-front of the others, leaving the rest of the classroom as one, wide open space. Sitting in the middle desk was a familiar, wizened old wizard by the name of Mr. Ollivander, the one who had sold Harry his wand. The tops of the three desks were covered with velvet and there were two chairs on either side of Mr. Ollivander. Bagman was on one side with Percy on the other. Rita Skeeter was on the far end and the fifth chair was empty. Percy was looking strained and brooding, like he had better things to be going on with than to be checking out silly wands for defects.  
  
When Raides walked in, everyone except Percy gave a startled gasp.  
  
"Hello," said Raides brightly before curling up on a comfortable piece of floor.  
  
Rita Skeeter was dressed in magenta robes, her black fingernails matching the black hat she was wearing and looking funny next to her crocodile-skin handbag. Standing next to her was her photographer, a paunchy man holding a large black camera.  
  
Sebastian and Adrianne were already there, each not talking to the other, Sebastian leaning against the wall, straight-backed and proud. Meanwhile Adrianne had immediately bounded forward to Harry the moment her shock over Raides was over.  
  
"Ah!" said Bagman brightly before she got to say a word. "Our third champion! Good, good. Now, nothing to worry about, just the Weighing of the Wands, to check that your wands are in perfect working order. You'll be making great use of them throughout the tournament and they're you're most valuable tool so you'll want to be sure they're in top notch working order."  
  
Dumbledore strode in with Madam Maxime and a nervous Karkaroff as he was finishing up and said, "May I introduce Mr. Ollivander, our wand expert, who will be checking to make sure your wands are fit for the tournament."  
  
Mr. Ollivander was a frail, old wizard. Harry had seen him last year when he had spoken to him about Raides when everyone thought her to be just a myth.  
  
"Mademoiselle Delacour, if you please?" said Mr. Ollivander.  
  
Adrianne left Harry's side as he went to stand by Raides. She handed him her wand.  
  
"Ahh," he said. "Beechwood... flexible... nine and half inches... somewhat springy and containing... ah yes, the same as Professor Delacour's own wand -- a hair from the head of a veela. Your grandmother's too, I presume?"  
  
Adrianne nodded. Mr. Ollivander then ran his fingers up and down the wand, apparently checking for inconsistencies or cracks.  
  
"Fragrodorus!" he shouted and a pink cloud erupted from the tip of Adrianne's wand, meeting Harry's nose and smelling very nice. "Perfect working order, if I do say so. Mr. Leon, you next."  
  
Sebastian smiled deeply, pushed his shoulders back, now looking more cocky than ever as Adrianne went to sit at the end near the back of the room. He handed Mr. Ollivander his wand and he immediately gave a shudder.  
  
"A rather... well, it should still work," he said uneasily, his fingers caressing the tip for a good few seconds before he twirled in his fingers. "Very stiff -- and being made of rock elm wood, it's hardly surprising -- and barely moveable at that. Containing... dragon heart string, is it?"  
  
Sebastian nodded proudly.  
  
Mr. Ollivander checked his wand as he had done with Adrianne's for cracks in the wood muttering something about it being dumb since rock elm never cracks or chips. "Gregorovitch, I must have a word with him," he said. He then muttered under his breath, before waving it and shouting, "Remedium Impluo!" A light rain appeared at the tip of Sebastian's wand, which Mr. Ollivander held out over the front of the velvet and showered the stone floor.  
  
"Last but not least, Mr. Potter."  
  
Harry stepped forward, handing Mr. Ollivander his own wand as Sebastian joined a reluctant Adrianne at the seats.  
  
"Yes, yes, yes... and I can still remember that day... and the phoenix from which I pulled a tail feather out of. Oh he was not happy, Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, not at all --"  
  
"Harry's wand contains a feather from Dumbledore's phoenix?" burst out Percy before he probably knew what he was saying. Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling and he nodded to Percy.  
  
"This wand's been through a lot," Mr. Ollivander went on and on, "yes indeed. Made of holly, eleven inches long. Quite springy, very powerful..." He examined it for a while longer before shouting, "Alohomora!" pointing it at the closed door. Absolutely nothing happened.  
  
Harry, Dumbledore and Mr. Ollivander were all staring at the wand. He tried again and this time a cloudy puff erupted from the wand but still, the door did not open like it was supposed to. Mr. Ollivander ran his fingers along the length of the wand once more, then shouted a little more loudly.  
  
Harry's wand gave an almighty lurch, shaking Mr. Ollivander's hand violently. Without thinking, Harry pointed a finger at Dumbledore who was standing right in his wand's path and shouted, "Accio!" A burst of green light had erupted from the wand tip, crashing into the wall where Dumbledore was standing. He would have been killed had Harry not used a Summoning Charm to pull him out of the way. He crashed into Harry, who fell over. Dumbledore helped to him to his feet...  
  
No one knew who to stare at except Dumbledore: Harry or the wand. Dumbledore himself was staring at Harry, who had just saved his life. Mr. Ollivander was sputtering incoherently and Harry had a horrible feeling Rita Skeeter would be conjuring up something nasty about this little episode with her Quick-Quotes Quill.  
  
"How -- what --?" Bagman tried to say, much to the sentiments of everyone else.  
  
No one said a word or even seemed to be breathing for a few minutes. Mr. Ollivander dropped the wand after a few seconds.  
  
Harry picked up his wand back and was asked to try to open the door with it, which worked in one try for him, as did the Fragrance Charm and the Healing Rain Charm. Mr. Ollivander, shaken, though clearly not as much as Dumbledore, who was still staring at Harry, who in turn was red as a brick, declared Harry's wand fully functional. Harry did recall how he had accidently broken his wand and repaired it with Raides. He shared this information with everyone, keen on hearing an explanation as to why his wand just casted the Killing Curse.  
  
"Broke it, you say?" said Mr. Ollivander. "Then fixed it with the staff?"  
  
"Yes. Cracked it in half. But it's been working perfectly for me," Harry informed them, looking around, just as confused as everyone else.  
  
"Only staves are known to exhibit this behavior," said Mr. Ollivander, looking at Raides, who was grinning up at him as he said this.  
  
"It was just a Repair Charm," said Raides.  
  
Dumbledore finally seemed to be able to speak. "That would not have changed the nature of Harry's wand," he said. "I have seen this happen several times... but each time the reason had been different."  
  
The mystery of Harry's wand trying to kill Dumbledore spread around the school like wildfire and Harry now had a new rumor to squash: that he wanted Dumbledore dead. Rita Skeeter reluctantly skipped photographs like she had intended on Dumbledore's orders. Knowledge that Raides didn't like her wasn't helping the matter but it was very fortunate for everyone else.  
  
Dumbledore and Harry reached a silent agreement to not discuss the matter, Harry being too embarassed at having saved his life and Dumbledore...  
  
November the twenty-eighth drew nearer and Harry's nerves mounted higher and higher, like only the approach of the game deciding who would win the inter-House Quidditch Cup could do. The only thing he wished he knew, aside from when Cho would reply to him, was what the first task was going to be. He contented himself with knowledge that he knew many, many charms and hexes and even if he was to face a dragon, he might even have a chance at knocking it out with the ice dragon and inferno spells. Hermione seemed to think Harry had lost his mind for suggesting he could do this but she changed her mind after Harry tried his hand at tackling a lightning dragon of his own conjuring.  
  
"Draconus fulguralia!" Harry bellowed, Raides in hand.  
  
Like had once had happened before, Harry's hand felt like it had been shocked and Raides fell out of it, but not before a bolt of lightning cracked from the crystal, sending a one hundred foot high dragon into the air. Several nearby students, including Harry, Ron and Hermione, screamed and some ran.  
  
Harry wand in hand and shaking slightly, bellowed, "Infernus grandis inflamora!" when the dragon's loud roars filled his ears.  
  
The ground beneath the dragon rumbled and a pit of fire opened up as a burst of fire shot forth from his wand to the dragon, making it disappear in a fury of lightning sparks. Harry grinned at the stunned faces of Ron and Hermione.  
  
"You do remember that time I used Inferno without a wand? Just a shame I can't use Clades Ultimus or Light of Faith without the staff," said Harry. "Those two spells alone would take care of anything."  
  
"Yes, and take care of you if you use Clades Ultimus improperly," Ron reminded him darkly.  
  
Harry recalled again when a Clades Ultimus he had done under influence of the Imperius had gone awry and exploded Colin Creevey. Both spells were ancient magic, Clades Ultimus being a particularly potent spell that killed anyone in a large region if they came in contact with a cloudly, blue haze. If improperly focused, it could kill just about anyone, including the caster, in a shower of blood and gore. Light of Faith, Harry learned, only worked against Dark wizards... and then he recalled how it worked on one Thantanos Brev during a dueling tournament at Hogwarts whose real name was Thantanos Quirrell... 


	27. Peeves

Chapter 27: PEEVES  
  
Harry figured he would really know if he had the Mark of Ancients again when he learned what the first task was going to be. On his reasoning, he would probably have a fit and start crying himself into a ball on the floor, horribly embarassing himself in front of the entire school. But he tried not to think about it because the more he did, the more of a foreboding feeling he got that it would happen.  
  
Cho's letter came three days after Harry had sent one to her and as Harry promised, Harry was to give Hedwig some bacon each morning. He was keen on keeping her happy as she was going to be a doing a lot of letter delivering this year which she didn't object to unless she was properly rested... Cho's reply made Harry feel a lot better as she had told him to not let the dream get to him, that he's stuck out far worse things, like Voldemort himself, for example and, one way or another, it would all be over after this year. She also asked if there was any chance she could go to Hogwarts with him to the Yule Ball. Harry felt strange about her asking about it but was excited all the same. He sent a letter back that very same day after asking Professor McGonagall, whom after some pleading on Harry's part, agreed ("Fine, Potter!" she snapped. "Fine!"; "Thank you!" said Harry gratefully).  
  
There was an incident involving Peeves the following day that involved Raides and one of her greatest wishes. It had snowed the previous day and Peeves had been throwing snowballs out on the grounds from atop the tallest tower at Hogwarts, the Astronomy Tower. Apparently, he didn't think Raides would be able to know it was him.  
  
Walking around the lake, Harry heard it before he felt it. A Hagrid-sized snowball, or more correctly, snow-boulder, connected with Harry's head, soaking his robes, entering his shoes to soak his socks, turning his usual black hair white and knocking him down. Full of snow and shivering, Harry lost it completely.  
  
"PEEVES!" he roared, making Hermione jump after Raides had muttered the same under her breath. He couldn't help himself; he had become a human snow-man.  
  
Harry got up, shook his head, brushing the snowflakes out of it and off of his robes. Peeves, feeling daring, swooped down upon him and Raides, sneering and doing a jig in mid air, all the while picking up and throwing more snowballs at the two of them. Harry stared, a certain fire in his eyes.  
  
He and Raides both stood, taking snowball after snowball, all the while growing more and more angry. Whether he wanted her to or not, Raides leapt into the air, transforming into the Staff of Cybele inside a cloud of misty gray smoke and Harry clutched her tightly in his hand.  
  
Peeves stared at the staff, not knowing what exactly Harry had in mind, but what he did have in mind was Raides telling him he could trap the filthy Poltergeist in a crystal ball. And so --  
  
"Accio crystal ball!" Harry roared, waving the staff in his hand, and, not even soaring through the air, a crystal ball simply appeared in his other hand. Not even taking the time to be amazed, Raides muttered something and Harry shouted it into the morning air. "Adnexum haec anima intra haec cavea!"  
  
It happened in screams of agony and a rush of wind.  
  
In one swift move, a thick, humongous, pearly white hand escaped the staff's crystal and grasped Peeves, squashing him, making him howl in pain (how could a Poltergeist feel pain? Harry thought) and disappeared inside the crystal ball. There was no more Peeves outside on the grounds and there was no Peeves anywhere to be seen. He had been magically binded to the ball.  
  
Ron and Hermione stared where Peeves had just been floating.  
  
"I should shatter this," said Harry angrily, leaning on the enormous staff.  
  
"Maybe you ought to bring it to Filch first," said Ron, halfway between shock and laughter.  
  
"I'm not saying that he doesn't deserve it, but you've basically killed him," said Hermione, also halfway between shock and laughter.  
  
"I heard screaming," wheezed a voice as footsteps came out of the castle behind Harry. "What's going on here?"  
  
Harry wheeled around to see Filch, and his cat, Mrs. Norris, prowling around his feet.  
  
Harry, still hot all over at Peeves, said, "It's Peeves, Mr. Filch. Well, it was." He held up the crystal ball.  
  
Filch stared. "What's this rubbish?" he said. "And where's Peeves?"  
  
Harry waved the crystal ball in Filch's face. "He's in here. I binded him to the ball. He's not getting out unless I let him."  
  
For a fleeting moment, Filch looked horrified but then he broke out laughing, ripped the crystal ball from Harry's hands and ran back into the castle with it, his eyes stunned but his face still laughing. Harry watched him go, a look of savage triumph on his face.  
  
A few hours later while eating in the Great Hall, he almost couldn't believe what he did. It didn't help that several people had come by to congratulate him ("Oh thank you! several first years said).  
  
"I think half the school already knows," said Ron, grinning at Harry's distressed face.  
  
"I still can't believe I did that," said Harry, wishing he could forget about it.  
  
At that instant, Harry saw Dumbledore enter the Hall, a grave look on his face, Harry's stomach gave a horrible turn as he spotted Harry and walked towards him. Dean, Neville, Seamus and Craig quickly stopped talking about why anyone would let Peeves stay in the first place when Harry pointed them in Dumbledore's direction, who was almost upon them now.  
  
Harry saw the remains of a sparkle behind his half-moon spectacles but he was walking with his hands folded in front of him, his long, crooked noise pointed directly at Harry as he walked.  
  
"I had caught wind of your exploits with Raides," he said slowly as he stopped. Harry remained seated. "I believe I have warned you once before to not abuse the staff --"  
  
"Professor --" Harry began desperately, without any idea what he was about to say and was partially glad that Dumbledore didn't stop speaking.  
  
"-- and I believe this will be your second warning, Harry." He looked down at his feet, something Harry never saw Dumbledore do before, and then back up at Harry, the sparkle completely gone now. "I must confess that under normal circumstances, the proper punishment would likely be a suspension but seeing as -- and as Professor McGonagall had once said not too long ago, since your life means more to us than a pack of magic tricks --" he was looking quite strained while trying to find the proper words to express himself with.  
  
There was a disappointment in his voice that Harry felt was worse to hear than getting yelled at so loudly his ears would be hurting. Rarely had Dumbledore ever strained himself for words.  
  
"There will be no detention as I -- good day, Harry," he finished and turned, walking away, letting his arms fall to his sides.  
  
"You really upset him, Harry," said Hermione.  
  
"What was that all about?" Ginny said.  
  
"He looked very stressed out about something," said Harry.  
  
"But he's right, you know. You need to stop abusing that staff. People are going to think you're falling to the Dark arts."  
  
"You mean again?" said Harry, rolling his eyes and referring to his second year.  
  
A few days later, word had got around Hogwarts that the crystal ball containing Peeves had been accidently dropped. Raides had celebrated with several first years in the entrance hall that morning. Filch said it was an accident but Harry knew better; he couldn't pass up the opportunity to be poltergeist-free if it had come so easy.  
  
The Saturday before the first task, it took Harry a minute to realize why his stomach felt like mush. Then he remembered that, in about twenty four hours, he'd be somewhere on the school grounds, shaking from head to toe while only having mere seconds to think up how to do something extraordinarily difficult. It gave him no pleasure.  
  
Third years and up were allowed to visit the village of Hogsmeade that day and it didn't take any persuasion at all from anyone to convince Harry to go. There was no more snow on the ground but that didn't stop it from being slightly cold and the first thing Harry went for was a Warmth Cloak he'd gotten from his father, one of the few, but so very precious, items passed down to him.  
  
"Wish I had one of those," said Ginny, her lips turning blue as they walked out of the castle and down the sloping lawns towards Hogsmeade.  
  
"I guess I can just engorge it," said Harry, pointing a finger at it and saying, "Engorgio!" Absolutely nothing happened. "So much for doing it without my wand," he said irritably, pulling out his wand and engorging the cloak properly.  
  
"You haven't been practicing magic without a wand much, have you?" asked Raides, grinning, as Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny pulled the cloak around themselves, looking very odd indeed.  
  
"No," said Harry. "Everything we're doing in class looks too hard to try without one. How good do you think I am?"  
  
"Better than you think."  
  
"What's she talking about?" asked Ginny curiously.  
  
"Raides wants Harry to practice magic without a wand," Ron explained.  
  
"Because I did quite a few spells without a wand over the summer... mostly on accident," Harry told Ginny.  
  
"I have this feeling you're going to be without your wand and in a very bad situation," said Raides.  
  
"Oh now you have Divination powers, too?" Hermione scoffed.  
  
Raides looked up at her, grinned, and then growled playfully. "Besides," she said, "the better you are at it without a wand, the better you'll be with one."  
  
"The opposite works, too, doesn't it?"  
  
"Well, yeah."  
  
Hermione made a distinct noise of dissent in the back of her throat on Raides' opinion that Harry practice magic without a wand. She could be heard muttering something that if he can't even do a simple Engorgement Charm, how was he supposed to summon an ice dragon. Harry privately agreed, but he did think it would be cool to do a handful of spells without a wand.  
  
Many people stopped to stare, not at Harry, but at the seven foot long, golden and scarlet lion following him that was Raides. It was a welcome change, if still slightly distracting. Raides didn't seem to mind; she rather enjoyed the attention. The first shop they stopped to visit was Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.  
  
"Should buy some Ton-Tongue Toffees for Dudley, Harry!" said Fred when the subject about things at Hogwarts fell upon Dudley.  
  
"The scary thing is I think he's getting fatter while he's here," said Harry.  
  
"What House is he in, anyway?"  
  
"Gryffindor," said Hermione, looking at something that resembled a Muggle electric toy car.  
  
"And has anyone in Gryffindor actually made friends with him? Or are they all afraid you'll curse them if you do?" George asked Harry, laughing while Fred sniggered loudly.  
  
"Er," said Harry.  
  
"He's in Gryffindor," said Ron uneasily, "but..."  
  
"But what?" said Fred, still sniggering. "So everyone is afraid Harry'll hex them?"  
  
"But he actually hangs out with Slytherins."  
  
Fred and George both stared at Ron.  
  
"What?" said George.  
  
"Dudley was hanging around the Gryffindor common room but it seems he made friends with our old friend Draco Malfoy at some point," Harry explained, "so now I rarely ever see him in Gryffindor Tower."  
  
"They pulled a nice prank on Harry where they stole his dad's Invisibility Cloak," said Ginny in a that-was-a-very-bad-thing-of-them-to-have-done sort of voice.  
  
"Except Harry lost it, nearly killed them and Dumbledore confiscated the cloak," said Hermione in a that-was-a-very-bad-thing-of-Harry-to-have-done sort of voice.  
  
"Don't remind me," said Harry bitterly. Then he grinned and added, "I used Raides to turn Invisible to go to the Owlery one night to send Cho a letter --"  
  
"Still talking to her, are you?" said Fred, which made Harry's ears turn a nice shade of pink.  
  
"Yes," said Harry, suddenly very interesed in the Muggle toy car that Hermione was looking at.  
  
"When are you two announcing your engagement --"  
  
"What's this thing do?" said Harry hastily, going slightly redder and picking it up.  
  
"Ah!" said George in a misty voice that reminded Harry of Professor Trelawney. "That is our latest invention. Give it to your Muggle friends. Never needs batteries! It runs on magic..."  
  
"Never can break it!" said George, coming out from behind the desk and looking over Harry's shoulder while Fred looked over the other. "A Destruction-Proof Charm..."  
  
"Never need to have it repaired! There's nothing inside of it..."  
  
"Never buy them!" said a witch as she stormed into the shop. "Are you two the owners of this shop?" she said angrily, looking at Fred and George. "My Muggle son ran one through a wall which in turn knocked an entire house down! Made a big mess with the Accidental Magical Reversal Squad, let me tell you!"  
  
Ron smiled.  
  
"We better go," he whispered to Harry, Hermione and Ginny. "Oh they'll be just fine. They get complaints all the time," he added, noting Hermione's shocked face. "People claiming that Squad had to sort something out but they've got everyone's number. They check the records with dad at the office once a month, nothing of their's has ever caused the Accidental Magical Reversal Squad to get called in."  
  
"Why do they do it then?" said Harry.  
  
"Money," Ginny said simply. "One person confessed under Veritaserum that he loved the thing so much that he wanted his money back. I don't know, we get some real weirdos in here. I helped out a bit on the weekends over the summer."  
  
Harry saw Fred wink at him as they left the shop, Raides behind them all.  
  
"I need to go to Honeyduke's," said Harry as they stopped and looked around to see where to go next.  
  
"Don't tell me you're still going to buy something for Dudley," said Hermione in disbelief.  
  
Harry thought for a minute. He was really in no position to have to buy Dudley anything, given he never gave two gnomes in a barrel for Harry every summer at Privet Drive... As they stepped into Honeydukes, Harry looked around at all the sweets on the shelves. Would Dudley want a Cockroach Cluster? A box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans? Fizzing Whizbees (makes you levitate), Droobles Best Blowing Gum (fills a room with bluebell-colored bubbles that don't pop for days), Toothfloosing Stringmints, Pepper Imps (make you breathe fire), Ice Mice (makes your teeth chatter and squeak), toad-shaped peppermint creams (which hop realistically in your stomach), sugar-spun quills or exploding bonbons? Harry couldn't make his mind up.  
  
He then grinned mischeivously.  
  
"I want to get him something that looks innocent but's somewhat mean," he said, which made Ron grin too but Hermione scowl.  
  
"Harry, you get him nothing," she said firmly.  
  
"Oh, Hermione, lighten up," said Ron, examining a box of Stomach Swirlers ("makes your stomach really feel like it's twisting, extremely nauseating!").  
  
"Harry, better you get something for Cho," said Hermione, now grinning herself. "Her birthday's the thirtieth!"  
  
Harry's face immediately changed from mischief to very red and he walked right towards the part of Honeydukes that held their most expensive and best sweets. He was now looking at Nougat Centers, nine Sickles by the dozen; Butterbeer Buttercups, eleven sickles for a box of nine; Honeyduke's Special, twelve sickles by the dozen; Dark Chocolate Delight, fifteen sickles for one box; and a very mysteriously named one called The Recipe that was a whopping two galleons for a box of thirty.  
  
He pointed it out to Ron but the shopkeeper immediately came over.  
  
"I do believe I gave you a sample of that last year?" he said, rubbing his old, wrinkled hands together in delight.  
  
Harry thought for a second, trying to recall what it tasted like because he didn't remember it by the name. Then he looked at the box again, and it immediately came back to him. Each piece was about an inch square, the outside half made up of white milk chocolate, the middle of dark chocolate with the face of a famous wizard on it. There was a pleasant hint of butterbeer mixed in with the succulent taste of the rest and Harry had to agree with his last decision: it was the best thing he'd ever tasted.  
  
"Two boxes, please," said Harry, pulling four galleons out of his money bag and trying to ignore the shock on Ron's face.  
  
"Hey, it's expensive, but you get a lot of them," said Harry, trying to calm Ron down and making sure the one foot by one foot box containing Cho's present was safely in his bag.  
  
"Blimey, Harry! Two galleons?" Ron said weakly. "And you rememeber the more they pack in a box the less expensive it is because they lose less on packaging!" But then he seemed to change moods, a hungry look in his eye. "I've never been able to afford those... Mom said she would have my broom..."  
  
Ginny's dismay was beyond words. Harry doubted whether she'd ever been entrusted with ten galleons. Her lips were pursed as she eyed the bag hungrily.  
  
"Only one's for Cho. The other's for us," said Harry impatiently.  
  
"Sweets for your sweet?" said Ginny.  
  
"Oh shut up." 


	28. The First Task

Chapter 28: THE FIRST TASK  
  
The morning of the first task, Harry felt like sleeping and saying he was too sick to compete but Ron had dragged him out of bed by the wrist. A bolt of thunder cracked outside, flashing in Harry's eyes. He looked outside and saw it was raining. Great, thought Harry, not only do I have to do some amazing piece of magic, but I have to do it soaking wet.  
  
"You're going, Harry, and I won't hear another word," Ron demanded as Harry got to his feet, having had fallen on the floor. "Go down to breakfast, eat -- and you better eat because Professor McGonagall looked really worried when I asked her what the first task is --" said Ron very seriously, "and she'll find you in there and tell you where to go."  
  
Harry felt far too sick to eat after hearing about Professor McGongall. He looked at his wand and then at Raides, truly wishing he could use a staff instead of a stupid wand. Feeling he would probably lose his lunch when he found out what the first task would be, Harry dressed, put on his glasses and went down to the Great Hall to pick at something to make it look like he'd been eating. His nerves were on end and it was just no good trying to force food down his throat when everything wanted to go the other way: up.  
  
He supposed last time, when he'd found out that the first task was to get passed a dragon and steal a golden egg, that he would have passed out in front of the school when he saw the real version of the miniature model he'd picked out of a small bag. Now, he supposed the only thing that would be worse would be if he had to fight a dragon. Far from knowing that he probably could kill a dragon if he wanted to, getting the proper spell to come out would be a much more difficult task when you could barely hold your wand straight.  
  
Every Gryffindor he passed on his trek into the Great Hall gave him encouraging words but nothing worked to lift the great weight that had settled inside of him and he kept getting more and more worried over what the task would entail. Hermione quickly shot down the idea of having to battle a balrog, a very, very tall creature made of fire  
  
"Are you kidding?" she said to him, eyeing him like he was an idiot. "You need Clades Ultimus to kill them and you do recall that that spell is ancient magic and everyone hoped it was long forgotten until the Mark of Ancients remembered it for you."  
  
"I'd still like to know how I was able to use spells I'd never even heard of," said Harry, a dazed twinkle in his eye. "Raides can remember spells but she's supposed to have her memory wiped out. Wonder if --"  
  
"-- it is related," said Raides, munching on her morning meat. But then, like usual she grinned and said, "But I still don't know how."  
  
"Harry!" called a voice from far away.  
  
Harry turned to see Sirius walking towards him.  
  
"How're you doing?" Sirius asked.  
  
"Terrible," Harry replied with a laugh.  
  
He wanted to stand up but figured he wouldn't be able to until he had to walk outside. On a happier note, it was a big relief for him to see another friendly face just before he had to go make an idiot of himself in front of the school.  
  
"Remember that letter where I said I would tell you about you-know-what?" said Sirius. "We'll talk about it just after the first task. I don't think there's enough time now because Professor McGonagall was behind me," he added, grinning.  
  
"Potter!" called another voice from far away.  
  
Harry turned to see Professor McGonagall, looking very white, waving him over.  
  
Harry tried to say "see you" but all that escaped his mouth was a hoarse sort of grunt and, feeling queasy, he stood up and walked over.  
  
"The champions are congregating out by the Quidditch field," she told him. "There is a tent set up where you will receive instructions on the first task. I must confess," she said, now sounding very distressed, "I found out what the first task is as of this morning and --"  
  
She stopped abruptly, clasped a hand to her mouth and swiftly walked away.  
  
"Good luck!" called Sirius and Hermione as Harry left the Great Hall.  
  
Harry, not feeling any better at all, headed out towards the Quidditch field where there was a tent erected not ten feet from the exit out of the castle.  
  
Sebastian was already there, looking perfectly happy, though slightly wet from the rain, sitting down on a chair inside the tent. It was quite like the previous one the champions had to wait in, which was small and cramped -- and this one was no better. Adrianne joined a minute later and Harry immediately saw the worry he'd been experiencing mirrored perfectly by her own bluish eyes. She wasn't speaking and Harry had a strong suspicion she was just as worried -- possibly as frightened -- as he was. Whether Sebastian knew what the first task was or not, Harry didn't care. Sebastian, every time Harry had seen him, was looking pompous and very irritating. Every time Adrianne's eyes flickered over him, some part of her always gave a short spasm and Harry had an even stronger suspicion that she disliked him as much as he did.  
  
Within a few more minutes, the silence only broken by Sebastian's grins and grunts of happiness, Harry saw the school spilling out onto the grounds and Bagman joined them very shortly after this had started. Several people were holding umbrellas. Bagman was holding a bag, which furthered Harry's feeling of nausea. The last time Bagman was holding a bag, he had asked them to pull out a miniature model of a dragon. Was it the same task? That wouldn't be so bad, Harry thought...  
  
"Hello, hello!" he said brightly, the usual boyish grin on his face, as he stepped inside the tent. He took one look at the glum faces of Harry and Adrianne and then said, "Why so worried? Take a page out of Sebastian's -- er" and he coughed, watching the two of them scowl.  
  
"Yes, well. The first task is very straightforward, if not slightly more difficult than the last Triwizard Tournament's first task," said Bagman. He held up and jiggled the bag he was holding in his hand. "You will take out two figures from this bag which will mark the two -- er -- opponents you will be facing. The entire school grounds is the battlefield for this task but we have placed charms all over so they cannot escape or fly too high.  
  
"Your opponents are two dragons," he continued. "One dragon is holding a key, which you need if you're to open what the other dragon is holding. Your other dragon will be carrying a black box laden with gold trimmings. It is your job to find where the box and key are and to get them. I will explain it's contents after the task.   
  
"The dragons fly, and as such, they aren't quite nearly as dangerous as those in the previous first task. But they are still quite formidable and there will be dragon trainers flying around on their own brooms in case things get ugly. You are, of course, allowed a broomstick, as I'm sure your Headmasters were instructed on," he added to Adrianne and Sebsatian. "Everyone will be provided with a Dragonback.  
  
"You are not supposed to damage the box, points will be taken away if it takes any. It cannot be destroyed, of course but, in any case...  
  
"I think that does it for the rules. Any questions?"  
  
There weren't any questions to be asked. By the look on Adrianne's face, she now felt the same as Harry felt -- that he had swallowed a Stomach Swirler. Looking at Sebastian, Harry thought fiercely to himself that he was just showing nerves by showing extra pride.  
  
Bagman held the bag up once more.  
  
"Ladies first?" he said, holding it in front of Adrianne.  
  
She pulled out two dragons, neither of which remotely as bad as the fierce and very large Hungarian Horntail Harry had faced three years ago. One was a Longhorn and the other, a Short-Snout. The Longhorn had the number two on it's feet.  
  
Just as Bagman held the bag in front of Harry, an earsplitting roar cracked the air and Harry was forcefully reminded of the Horntail. He sincerely hoped he wouldn't have to chase one of those around in the air on a broom. Harry pulled out a Peruvian Vipertooth, which Bagman took the time to tell Harry was the smallest, but fastest flier of all dragon breeds, and a Ukranian Ironbelly. Harry was not happy to see that it was the largest of all the dragons. The Ironbelly had the number three on it's feet.  
  
Sebastian pulled out a Ridgeback, the same breed of dragon Hagrid had owned for a short time, and an Opaleye, bearing a one it's feet.  
  
"You are not allowed to kill the dragon unless your own life is in danger," Bagman told them once everyone had taken a seat. "Of course, you'll probably have a job trying to do so!"  
  
Just then, a whistled sounded.  
  
"I've got to be going!" said Bagman. "You three will be just fine. Keep your heads on, stay focused and get that box! Mr. Leon, with me if you please?"  
  
And he was gone. Sebastian, with a proud look on his face, followed Bagman. Thirty seconds later, the sounds of Sebastian tackling his dragon met Harry's ears.  
  
It was far worse than Harry ever could have imagined.  
  
Bagman was making commentary and the first thing Harry heard was the roar of both of Sebastian's dragons and Bagman yelling "Oh, my, he almost had it there!"  
  
The crowd, yelled, screamed, shrieked and gasped as if they were one. Sebastian did many things, apparently, because Bagman was now numbering them. Nothing seemed to work. Harry heard a huge blast of fire that could only mean one thing. Unfortunately, thought Harry, Sebastian had gotten away.  
  
"That was a mighty close call, folks! Let's just hope he doesn't try that again! And the Ridgeback goes flying towards the Forbidden Forest. Oh, close shave. Skilled with a broom but not that quick! Hindered by the rain, no doubt! He does look quite wet, folks..."  
  
Adrianne was turning a nice shade of green and kept throwing her sheet of silvery-blonde hair back in what was unmistakable worry. In what was about an hour later, the simultaneous roar of the crowd as one being came right before Bagman announced Sebastian had gotten the box and the key.  
  
"Very good! And with only some, well, no injuries too fatal, I'm sure! And now, the marks from the judges."  
  
There were no numbers called out as there hadn't been last time either. The judges were drawing numbers in the air with their wands. There was clapping and the whistle sounded again. Adrianne, now the color of the grass outside, left, leaving Harry so very alone.  
  
Bagman's commentary made Adrianne's go with the dragons ten times worse than Harry hoped it was.  
  
"Very, very close shave with two streams of fire. Oh, I say!"  
  
Fifteen minutes into it, Harry heard a thud, a high pitched scream and a jet of fire. Adrianne had been hit by one of the dragon's wings and had fallen thirty feet to the ground.  
  
"She will be all right, it seems. That's why we have dragon trainers flying around!"  
  
But when she got back into the air, her situation hardly improved. There was another thud of dragon wing against human flesh and another high pitched scream but Adrianne seemed to have been able to stay on her broom this time. Ten minutes later, Bagman shouted that Adrianne had obtained the key, nearly getting a face full of dragon claws and nearly fourty minutes after that, had obtained her box.  
  
There was another pause while the marks were being shown, in which time Harry took the time to stick his head between his knees and take steadying breaths. He'd not had very much to eat and didn't want to lose any of it, especially while flying fifty to eighty feet in the air. Harry was quite sure the Vipertooth would be giving him a run for his money.  
  
And then the whistle sounded again and Harry, the grass before his eyes going in and out of focus, stepped out of the tent. His two dragons, the Vipertooth and the Ironbelly, were chained to the ground by a dozen or so each horrendously thick metal chains that were glowing, magically enhanced, thought Harry, so they wouldn't break.  
  
If Harry thought the Horntail was dangerous, it didn't hold a candle to the sheer size of the Ironbelly now standing before him. It had metallic gray scales, deep, fiery red eyes, fangs large enough to pierce Harry's head and split it in two and he was quite sure it weighed enough to flatten Hogwarts should it land on top of it.  
  
Bagman, holding an umbrella in one hand, handed him the Dragonback in his other as two dragon trainers released the dragons. They immediately glared their eyes at Harry, soaring one hundred feet overhead. Shaking from head to toe and finding himself telling Bagman that he was just fine, Harry kicked off the ground after the dragons, feeling that flying towards London would be a better option.  
  
At once, the Vipertooth glared menacingly at him again, baring it's teeth at him and soared off after Harry. It was extremely fast, almost too fast. He flattened himself to the broomhandle, getting a torrent of rain in his face and turned to look behind himself. The Vipertooth was falling behind but ever so slowly; this was surely a very fast-flying dragon. But it wasn't going to get Harry anywhere if he wanted to get the key or box off of it and he didn't even know where it was yet.  
  
The best thing Harry could do, and the easiest, would be to summon a dragon of his own to at least scare off the Vipertooth. The Ironbelly wasn't even close but would surely hurt if it happened to hit him with a wing or it's tail... and then there was the issue of it's bad breath.  
  
Suddenly, something in his gut instinct told him to turn sharply upwards and he did so... looking down and seeing a jet of flame where he'd been just a second ago. Harry circled the entirety of Hogwarts, the Vipertooth tailing him closely. He brought it back around towards the Quidditch field, flying over the heads of the people in the stands where people were pointing up at him. Harry was far too high up to hear anything they were saying but it didn't matter anyway; not having to hear Bagman was slightly comforting.  
  
He flipped his legs over the broom, now flying backwards, to see if he couldn't steal a look to find either the box or the key on the Vipertooth. The Ironbelly wasn't much trouble; it was flying very slowly.  
  
Harry took a good look at the Vipertooth, flying over North Tower and heading towards the Forbidden Forest. It's fangs were bared and he got a scary good look at the claws on it's hands; they looked vicious. But, trying to put the thought of what it would do to him should it catch up, Harry gave the entire dragon's body the once-over, trying for dear life to find the box or the key. He was Seeker, after all, on Gryffindor House's Quidditch team, the youngest one in a century when he joined in his first year; he had to be good at spotting small things -- very small things.  
  
And there it was, glinting at him in the sunlight: the key was tied to a rope, attached around the dragon's middle and sitting on it's back. What a great place, thought Harry, that's not going to be easy to get.  
  
So he put his instincts in the forefront, turning towards West Tower, doing a u-turn over the Forbidden Forest and flipping his legs to fly normally again. Harry needed to get near the dragon's back without getting himself killed. But how?  
  
Surely those talons were as vicious as they looked and the the tail was no less of a threat than any other part of the dragon. There was one hope Harry could think of: it was not nearly as fast as a speeding Dragonback broomstick.  
  
Acting far more bravely than he felt at the moment, cruising over the Astronomy tower and heading back towards the Quidditch field, Harry made a sharp turn and flattened himself once again on his broomstick. Flying at breakneck speed towards the Vipertooth, Harry was met with nothing other than a wing to the head as the dragon made a quick swipe at him. He completely lost control of his broom after this and hurtled towards the roof of the castle, landing with a hard crunch on top of it, feeling something in his leg give a painful snap as he landed. But there was another problem as he dug a hand into his robes to look for his wand: it wasn't there. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to go searching for his wand with two dragons tailing him (and like trying to get a key and box off a dragon is any smarter? he thought miserably to himself).  
  
A far more pressing matter was that of his leg, he thought, so he needed to get that stupid key and box as fast as possible. Harry climbed back onto his broom and kicked off into the air again, muttering "Faster, faster!" to the broom as the Vipertooth was catching up.  
  
"DRACONUS ICILIA!" he thundered, stupidly pointing a finger behind himself.  
  
A puff of snow came out of his fingertip and the wind blew it away.  
  
Okay, calm yourself, think straight and try to think that you aren't doing something insane by chasing these dragons, Harry told himself.  
  
Not feeling remotely more calm and now quite green both from the thought of chasing after a dragon one hundred feet in the air (now flying over the Quidditch field and the crowd) and the pain in his leg, Harry tried the spell again.  
  
A blast of snow erupted from his fingertip this time, forming into a tiny dragon made of ice, barely two feet high. But it was able to do it's job; it started pelting the Peruvian Vipertooth with snowballs, irritating it beyond belief. One landed on the Vipertooth's eye, causing it to issue a jet of flame from it's mouth that narrowly missed giving Harry a new hairstyle as he panicked and dived downward.  
  
Thoroughly shaken, Harry looked over his shoulder. As the dragon made of ice exploded into a flurry of snowflakes, the key on the other dragon's back had been shaken and the length of rope had been loosened. Although now it was closer to the claws than was comfortable, he probably had a much better chance getting at it then when it was on top of the dragon. Against his better judgement, Harry tried again.  
  
Making an about face over the back of the Quidditch field and heading towards the lake, Harry spun his Dragonback around. In one quick move, he then hurtled under the Vipertooth, got a length of claw that tore his robes and left a sharp pain in his upper shoulder and, with his good arm, tore the key off the length of rope, pulling the dragon down several feet and breaking the rope as he zoomed away. The Vipertooth let off an earsplitting roar, issuing a jet of fire from it's mouth underneath itself that cleanly missed Harry but it ignited the length of rope as it flew forward. The rope burned up in an inferno, hitting the ground as ashes.  
  
He had done it, he had obtained the key but there was blood freely flowing from both his shoulder and the cut on his leg where his pants had torn when crashing on the castle roof. With no wand, he didn't think he had much chance of closing either wound. Turning a shade of white, feeling slightly dizzy and stuffing the key in the pocket of his soaked robes, Harry turned his attention to the Ironbelly.  
  
Then something frightening hit him. If the Ironbelly was slow-moving and the Vipertooth very fast, how was he supposed to slow to Ironbelly speeds with the Vipertooth wanting revenge? Sure it was easy with only one dragon chasing you, but... two? He half wished dragon skin could get as wet as his school robes, slowing the Vipertooth down just as much as Harry's soaken cloak was slowing him down.  
  
Just then, Harry gave a start as a bolt of lighting cracked from the stormy skies again. He looked skyward and got an idea. Perhaps it wasn't so bright, but it just might work.  
  
He'd been able to control lightning before. Maybe if he directed it at the rope, he could break it and the box would fall... and he could make a fast dive to catch it before it hit the ground? It was an idea, the only one he had in mind at the moment... and both his leg and shoulder were really hurting him now.  
  
Harry needed to be able as fly as fast as he possibly could. Plucking at the drenched cloak on his back and feeling the water gush out of it by just squeezing it between his fingers, he flew towards the Quidditch field and crowd, taking the cloak off his back and dropping it. He turned quickly back up as a pudgy girl dashed out of the crowd and onto the field, presumably to grab it...  
  
Now slightly lighter, the only thing getting rid of his cloak did was making him more airdynamic without the cloak whipping behind him like some sort of parachute. It did make him slightly faster -- not much -- but hopefully enough. The only question now was would he be able to aim a lightning bolt at the rope on the dragon? He did see the box; it was tied to the Ironbelly in the same fashion as the key was on the Vipertooth.  
  
Closing his eyes and hoping against hope, Harry heavily concentrated his thoughts on the clouds above him and the bolts of lightning streaking across the sky.  
  
A bright flash of light, a gasp of the crowd below, Harry opened his eyes.  
  
There was a patch of grass on the ground one hundred feet below him smoking -- that meant he had missed.  
  
Harry kept his eyes open this time and concentrated again, staring intently, trying to ignore the stabbing pains in his shoulder and leg which was very hard to do at this point. Now flying towards the greenhouses, Harry hit his target. A lightning bolt streamed from the sky, giving the Ironbelly's head a good shock and do nothing but angering the dragon.  
  
Harry led it back over the Quidditch field and tried again... and missed again, hearing another, louder set of gasps from the crowd. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bunch of people running. Paying no attention to it, the fourth time was golden.  
  
A zig-zagging bolt of lightning struck from the sky, hitting the rope dead on, burning it up on the dragon and releasing the golden box. Filled with adrenaline now and not letting the dragon's roar of pain distract him, Harry flattened himself once again against the broomhandle which sent him rocketing towards the plummeting box. He reached out the hand from his uninjured shoulder and snatched the dropping box out of the air.  
  
But the scene on the ground as the dragon trainers in the air subdued the Ironbelly and Vipertooth with charms was not inviting to return to. Someone had been hurt; Harry suddenly realized all those people running as he came back towards the Quidditch field were running to whoever it was. He could only make out random words because much was blocked out by screaming.  
  
"Dead!"  
  
"Struck by the bolt from Potter!"  
  
"One hit and he died?"  
  
"It wasn't on purpose, of course not!"  
  
Harry's heart sunk just as fast as he'd dived to hit the ground with a thud, nearly making his broken leg collapse under the weight. Clutching his bleeding shoulder, dropping the broom, key and box and hopping across the grounds, Harry saw Raides running up to him along with Ron and Hermione. Ron and Hermione were both wearing the same sort of panicked face as the one slowly growing on Harry's. Raides was wearing her usual smirk which upset Harry in a way he couldn't explain. She seemed to not care that something very serious had happened, that someone had died.  
  
When Ron and Hermione had led Harry over to the crowd where a group of people were huddled around a body in the middle of the Quidditch field, Harry's heart then sank even lower.  
  
It was Dudley.  
  
Harry simply stared, transfixed, at the burnt patch of hair upon Dudley's thick head and then at the lifeless blue eyes set in his pudgy face. He was struck with a pang of guilt. All the times Dudley had made fun of Harry, all the times Dudley had chased him around school or at Privet Drive with a raised fist, all the raging fits Dudley went into to get what he wanted... it spun madly in Harry's mind in a whirl of color and voices. None of that mattered anymore. Dudley was dead, struck by a bolt of lightning that Harry had misaimed at a target.  
  
He never thought he'd ever feel something, deep inside, about anything concerning Dudley but the one thing he hadn't counted on witnessing was the end of Dudley's life. And worse yet, he, Harry, had done it.  
  
Was he going to be sent to be expelled? Thrown of the wizarding world? Sent to Azkaban? Or would someone realize he would never, in his entire life, wish death upon anyone (except maybe Voldemort)?  
  
Something made him want to look down at Raides just to see the look on her face. Gripping his hurting shoulder even tighter as the pains turned into throbs, he turned to face the golden and scarlet lion and saw that she was smiling, gazing nonchalantly at the lifeless Dudley just feet from her. And then, to Harry's -- and many other people's -- horror, she began laughing.  
  
"How can you laugh?" cried Harry, his mouth hanging open, turning to her with a panicked eye, hardly daring to believe what his ears were telling him.  
  
She looked up at him. "People die," said Raides simply, turning away, "life goes on. You're still alive, aren't you?"  
  
This did nothing more than further Harry's feeling of guilt.  
  
The people all around him were now being ushered back inside the castle by the teachers. Several people were crying, some people were making rude gestures at Harry as they passed and others still were tell him they knew he didn't really mean to do it.  
  
Harry stuck out a hand atop of Raides' head and a second later, she was being thrown from Harry's hand like a spear, lifeless herself, as the Staff of Cybele as far away as his uninjured shoulder would allow.  
  
He didn't even want to think of how the Dursleys would react knowing their son had been killed while away for not even four months in his first year of wizarding school -- which they didn't even want to send him to in the first place. Throw in the fact that Harry had killed him and he might as well kill himself at the end of the year instead of even dreaming of going back to Privet Drive. He was quite sure they'd be ready with the axe the minute he set foot through the front door.  
  
Rain cascading down his saddened face, he simply didn't know what to do until he felt a hand on his shoulder pulling him back and a voice saying, "Come on, Harry. There's nothing you can do. Your leg's broken and bleeding and your shoulder's bleeding badly. Come on."  
  
Harry suddenly became aware of the stings in his leg as someone grabbed him just above the elbow of his uninjured arm and wheeled him around to walk back into the castle. 


	29. The First Test

Chapter 29: THE FIRST TEST  
  
Ron was steering him inside the castle, Hermione with the box, key and Harry's cloak (which the girl had dropped) in her hands. He didn't want to look at them, to see the looks on their faces; he just wanted to disappear atop Gryffindor Tower. At the very least, their walk to the hospital wing and a very distressed-looking Madam Pomfrey was devoid of anyone except the three of them.  
  
Madam Pomfrey didn't say anything as she put her wand to both his broken leg and bleeding shoulder, mending the cut and healing the bones. When she finished, she simply said, "You may go."  
  
Still in a state of shock, everything seemed to be swimming before Harry's eyes as Ron now steered him someplace new. He was still dizzy from the loss of blood, the wrenching pain in his leg and the aftershocks of the sting in his arm. Add in the knowledge that someone he knew for sixteen years, someone he wasn't very fond of but in a time of crisis, felt something, just died...  
  
They were now leaving the hospital wing and going to where what seemed to be the staff room. Harry didn't want to go there, he didn't want to know what anyone had to say to him and was partially glad neither Ron nor Hermione were saying anything. If they believed he didn't mean to do it on purpose or not... He was still in a state of numb disbelief, hoping that if he pinched his slightly stinging leg, he would wake up but somehow couldn't move his arm to do it.  
  
When Ron and Hermione arrived at the staff room, Ron still clinging to Harry's upper arm, Harry saw that Professors McGongall, Figg, Dumbledore, Fudge, Bagman and Percy were all sitting around a table. They looked up at Harry when he entered and he immediately found his legs turning the other way to walk out of the room, his face going white and expressionless when he caught sight of them all.  
  
"Harry," called Dumbledore, but it seemed far away and distant, echoing around in his cavernous, empty head as Ron's grip on his arm tightened and he steered Harry back in.  
  
Hermione walked ahead of him and pulled a chair out. Harry then found his legs walking over to the chair and realized that he was taking a seat in it. The conversation that ensued didn't fully stick to him but he got the gist of it.  
  
The Dursleys were to get a letter explaining that Dudley had been struck by a bolt of lightning and had been instantly killed. It would mention that attempts were made to revive him, though they told Harry no such thing had ever happened as they knew very well it would do nothing. Somewhere under his persistant state of shock and numbness, he could tell this was so the Dursleys wouldn't try to come to Hogwarts with a gun in each hand and demand to know where Harry was and, though he couldn't express himself at all, he was thankful for it.  
  
Dudley was to be buried within the week and Harry found himself shaking his head (as he couldn't speak yet) when someone asked if he wanted to attend the funeral. Fudge was the first one to admit they didn't know what to do with Harry at all but he seemed to agree with Dumbledore that there would be some kind of punishment. One word swam around in Harry's mind during this part of the conversation: Azkaban. Fudge mentioned it once but the idea was quickly shot down when they all turned to see who had made that sharp intake of breath. Immediately, Dumbledore, Percy, Professor McGonagall and Professor Figg began thinking of alternate solutions. Harry didn't want to go near another dementor for as long as he lived and just wanted them to decide on something so he could go up to Gryffindor Tower and disappear on his four-post bed.  
  
Harry's fragmented thoughts then wandered onto a letter he received in his fifth year when he thought he had been expelled for good. The letter said that the course of action was either a week long term in Azkaban or a term long study in wizards and witches falling to the Dark arts with several privledges revoked. He mulled over this for a moment before Professor Figg said "How about the term-long study in Dark arts?"  
  
Harry, who's eyes had been wandering aimlessly around the room, looked up at her, who, startled looked back.  
  
"What do you think?" she said to Harry.  
  
Harry looked to Fudge, then to Percy, then to Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and then back to Professor Figg.  
  
For a moment, he couldn't speak just yet but then he said quickly, "As long as I don't have to go to Azkaban, I don't care."  
  
Dumbledore, smiling darkly, turned to Fudge and Professor Figg, nodding to each of them.  
  
"But perhaps a little modification to the study?" suggested Professor Figg, turning to Dumbledore. "Given the current circumstances, perhaps it would be a good idea to focus on Harry's more... outstanding abilities?"  
  
"What do you suggest, Arabella?" asked Dumbledore calmly.  
  
"Maybe he'd be slightly interested in a bit about his family's past?" said Professor Figg and under all of Harry's bad feelings so far, his heart managed to take a slight leap.  
  
Seeing some emotion come back to Harry's face, Fudge said, "Really, Arabella, is it wise to make it fun? It's supposed to be a punishment, after all --"  
  
"Yes, Cornelius, but I need not mention the circumstances at hand," said Dumbledore and Harry knew immediately that Dumbledore was referring to everything, everything that had ever happened and that a sharp punishment wouldn't smooth over too well. It was only two years ago that Harry nearly lost his mind and, as Ginny once put it, this year wasn't exactly starting out like roses...  
  
"What are you saying, Albus?" said Fudge, clearly not catching it as quickly as Harry and, apparently, everyone else. Percy showed that he knew because he grinned shortly at Fudge who looked curiously back at him.  
  
"If you don't mind me saying, Cornelius, I think it is not wise to make matters any worse than they already are."  
  
Harry then remembered about the Order of Merlin plaque dangling from his neck. He grabbed it in one hand, feeling that usual small wave of calmness wash over him. And then something miraculous happened: he was able to speak.  
  
But, plaque in hand, he did nothing more than look up hopefully at Fudge.  
  
Fudge sized him up, from the blood on his shoulder, the Phoenix Bracelet on his wrist that Harry now realized he had completely forgotten about using to heal his injuries and the plaque in his hand. Harry quickly let go of it, causing some of the numb shock to flood back to him and his face going expressionless again. He just hoped that Fudge hadn't been told why he sometimes held the plaque... From behind the faces of everyone else, Dumbledore saw this and nodded, letting Harry know that he had done the right thing by letting it go.  
  
Harry then found he couldn't say that he just wanted to go. He looked around for Ron and Hermione and saw that they were gone.  
  
Sensing Harry's returning distress, Dumbledore turned to him and said, "Very well. Your Hogsmeade privledges will be revoked; you will, however, be allowed on the trip to New York but you will not be allowed outside the castle except for Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures. Professor Figg shall assign your study within the next week or so. From the day you get assigned the study, this will remain for the following six months. I think that settles it?"  
  
Fudge, annoyed, nodded but then Bagman burst out in alarm, "The key and the box!"  
  
"How could I forget," said Dumbledore, sounding slightly annoyed himself.  
  
"As far as your score goes," said Bagman, pulling out a piece of parchment from inside his robes, his tone now a little more nervous and shaky, "while we all agreed it was a most excellent fashion of getting the key and box from both dragons and was the shortest time of all, all of us believe -- your combined score is a thirty-four out of fifty. And now the other champions, Albus?" asked Bagman sounding less nervous and, three minutes later, Adrianne and Sebastian walked in following Dumbledore. They took one slightly alarmed look at Harry before Bagman caught their attention.  
  
"Right. Well. The second task is to take place at ten in the morning on February the twenty-eighth. It will take place inside the Forbidden Forest but we are taking extra precautions to see that none of you are hurt. A magical camera will be placed around you so that, for one, we can see your progress and two, that you won't be harmed. Harry, we ask that you keep Raides on call for the entire second task so that we may aid anyone in trouble. You are allowed to keep her with you but using the staff instead of your wand is out of the question.  
  
"When you open the box with the key, you will see that it has a strange item indeed inside of it, different for each of you. It is your job to figure out what it does, how it works, how it will help you and what to do with it. They are all as equally confusing as the next, I assure you, and all will help you perform the task as excellently as the next. I do admit, one of yours is slightly harder to figure out than the rest" -- Harry had a feeling that it would be his -- "but you will figure it out, regardless. The first thing to do when the task starts is to first find out what you must do. That is all I have to say," Bagman finished, smiling briefly.  
  
"Off you go then," said Dumbledore to the champions.  
  
Harry felt like saying thank you to him but his throat felt too blocked up to make any sound in it and so the next second he found that his legs were carrying him out of the staff room. Adrianne and Sebastian asked him to bring them to the castle doors and left abruptly, leaving Harry to trek back to Gryffindor Tower on his own.  
  
Upon entering the common room, there was a hushed silence as he stepped through the portrait hole. Sirius, with Harry's wand, was sitting on a chair next to Ron and Hermione, all of whom turned around to see Harry enter. Without saying a word, Sirius, Ron and Hermione all stood up, crossed the room, Sirius grabbing Harry's shoulder and they steered him out of the common room through the portrait hole.  
  
"Library," said Sirius shortly, handing Harry his wand.  
  
Arriving at the library, Sirius motioned for the three of them to sit. He then walked over to Madam Pince, the librarian, took a book from her and joined them.  
  
Harry took a look at the title as Sirius handed it to him: "The Dark Arts and Their Powers."  
  
"This might not be the best time," Sirius began, "but I have to be leaving soon so if I'm going to tell you how I knew you could you-know-what before you did, it has to be now. Turn to page nine hundred sixty-two and take a look at the third paragraph."  
  
Harry read to himself while Ron and Hermione looked over his shoulder.  
  
CHAPTER SEVENTY FOUR  
  
POSSESSION  
  
Of the many known Dark arts, Possession ranks among the most foul and ill-taken of them all. It was first discovered by a witch doing her laundry in a lake, who found herself wrapping her cloak around her head and pitching herself head first to her death. Through the nineteenth century, many Dark wizards have abused this ability to it's greatest extent, some incidents of which have nearly risked exposure of the wizarding world to the greater Muggle world. One of the foulest wizards of the age, Lord Voldemort, herein referred to as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, uses this ability in very secret ways so as to aid him, not hurt him. Possession involves locking onto a target body, temporarily moving your own soul to another body and forcing theirs out. But enough of an introduction, on to how to identify this beast.  
  
Many wizards and witches who do not yet know they have the ability of Possession often find themselves with strange dreams that often seem to be telling events that are occuring in real time.  
  
Harry immediately stopped reading and looked up at Sirius, his mouth agape.  
  
"Gotten to the part about your dreams, have you?" said Sirius grimly, not smiling. "Keep reading."  
  
This only happens to potent wizards and witches, whose mind can cast out to someone else, lock on and do the switch, often hundreds or thousands of miles away from where they are. The untrained mind goes haywire sometimes during sleep and when the person is stimulated, uncontrolled possession can occur. More often than not, the target ends up being someone nagging at the person's mind.  
  
"Voldemort," Harry said soundlessly under his breath.  
  
So that was how he had that dream, three years ago, about that Muggle, Frank Bryce, entering that house and that was also how he had been able to see about how one of Pettigrew's mistakes had been fixed that same year. He had possessed both Frank Bryce... and an owl. All he needed now was to accidently possess Fudge or Bagman and his life was over.  
  
"Well that's nice," said Harry, closing the book and putting it down.  
  
He looked behind both his shoulders where Ron and Hermione were standing and they looked back, lost for words. Harry knew they both felt the same as he did: like their stomachs had been ripped out. He had to ask himself, was there anything else he'd been using without knowing it? And was it just as bad -- or worse -- than this?  
  
"It'd be a good idea to -- er -- practice it," said Ron to Harry with a half glance at Hermione, "wouldn't it?"  
  
"Yes it would," said Sirius and then he leaned closer to Harry, noting the anxiety on his face, adding, "Calm yourself, it's not so bad."  
  
"Yes it is," said Harry so fast it was rude. "I read an essay Hermione wrote on it. I had to also but, you know, I have personal experience in the matter."  
  
Hermione went flush. "D'you really think people will react badly to it?" she asked, looking between Sirius and Ron. "I mean, it's you," she said, finishing while looking at Harry.  
  
Sirius looked at her.  
  
"No one reacted very warmly when they found out Harry could speak Parseltongue, did they now?" he said to Hermione and then he turned to Harry. "And I don't think he wants to repeat the experience."  
  
Harry agreed by smiling darkly.  
  
"But that was different!" Hermione retorted.  
  
"Keep your voice down --"  
  
"There were attacks on students," she went on more quietly, ignoring Sirius, turning to Harry again. "And besides," she said simply, "you killed a basilisk, a balrog, rescued Sirius, got Raides and nearly killed Voldemort twice. I hardly think," she said harshly, "anyone is going to think you're using it for something bad."  
  
"I still think Harry should practice it," Ron said again.  
  
"Ron's right," said Harry. "I don't wanna be accidently using it and have it land on Fudge or someone. That'll cause an almighty uproar, that will."  
  
"The only question now is," said Hermione, "how?"  
  
Sirius thought for a moment, then said to Harry, "Well, I -- I supposed you could just try it on these two," pointing at Ron and Hermione. "You know, just to get a feel for it, so you don't end up doing it to someone accidentally."  
  
This didn't exactly sound appealing to any of them.  
  
"But, what do I do if I -- er -- get stuck?" Harry asked, thinking about what would happen if he had to walk to Dumbledore's office and tell him Hermione or Ron was really Harry and that he was stuck in a possession and couldn't get out of it. "You know, do it, and then I can't get out?"  
  
For a moment there, Sirius looked perplexed then, trying to hide it, told Harry, "You'll be able to figure it out, I'm sure. So, how about getting Raides back?" said Sirius, changing the subject hastily.  
  
"I don't want her back," said Harry shortly. "Did you hear what she was doing? She laughed. I can't believe it, it's like she didn't even care that Dudley..."  
  
"Well you better get her back, Harry, because I don't think Voldemort's going to play nice if he turns up here and you're without her. And worse yet, what if he gets a hold of her?"  
  
Harry hadn't thought of that, so he held up his wand and said "Accio staff!" and they were all greeted a second later by a seven foot long staff flying to Harry in the library. He held her in his hand and she sprang to life. He was still angry at her so he dropped her and she transformed into the great lion before hitting the ground.  
  
"Sorry about earlier," she said immediately, having read the title of the book sitting on the table.  
  
Harry then dropped his anger at once, feeling it useless to argue the point. She did have about ten thousand years of life on him and her views were bound to be different after she was used by one of the Darkest wizards to exist since Voldemort...  
  
"Nah it's -- all right," Harry said gloomily, feeling his shoulders finally relax since he saw Dudley's body and putting his face in his hands, his elbows resting on the table. And then, to his surprise, a short, airy and nervous laugh escaped his mouth as he said, "I'd just like to know where I'm gonna stay this summer."  
  
He slowly turned his head up, his fingers going the length of his face, before resting his jaw on his palms. After all was said and done, there was absolutely nothing to be done about Dudley. Raides was right and if he let it get to him, it was likely to tear him to pieces. While it was nothing to laugh at, there was no point, he told himself, in losing his mind over it.  
  
Sirius, Ron and Hermione gave their own version of a nervous laugh.  
  
"Look at the bright side, Harry," said Ron. "You don't have to stay with the Dursleys anymore!"  
  
"Yeah, you're right," said Harry, a dreamy look on his face. "Except I'll probably have to live on the streets of Hogsmeade instead," he then said loudly, feeling a change of mood, angrily slamming a fist on the table and standing up very suddenly. He snatched the key, box and his cloak from Hermione. "C'mon Raides, I'm going to work out that stupid clue for the second task. Maybe if someone else dies on the way, you can laugh at them, too."  
  
It was an understatement to say that Sirius was alarmed at this. Ron and Hermione, having seen similar behavior, told Sirius to just sit down.  
  
"What's wrong with him?" said Sirius, half standing up and half sitting down, goggling at Harry as he left the library.  
  
"I don't know what's wrong with him," said Hermione, shaking her head gravely, "I really don't."  
  
"But whatever it is," said Ron, "it's obviously not good."  
  
"Has he done that before?" said Sirius, still staring at the empty library doors, and slowly receeding into his seat. "I mean, he was perfectly fine a second ago then he... blew up!"  
  
Hermione let out a mix between a tut and a sigh, saying, "He's been acting like that since, well... since the beginning of the year. Neither of us honestly know what it is," she told Sirius.  
  
"You might say it's because he misses Cho but somehow I don't think that alone is it," Ron suggested while Hermione gave him a curious look.  
  
"Really," she said loftily. "D'you -- really -- think he's exploding left and right on people just because he misses Cho?" she asked Ron flatly.  
  
Ron shrugged, looked at Sirius and said dismissively, "I don't know," his voice trailing away. "He blew up on Snape a couple of times last year," Ron explained, "and that was fun to watch. He was miserable to be around all Christmas vacation, though. Your supposed death really unhinged him."  
  
"Can't blame him, can we?" Sirius asked Hermione, finally turning away from the door and now looking at The Dark Arts and Their Powers. "I'd like to make it up to him, but I don't know how. The least I thought to do was to come and watch the tournament with him but now that he's gotten himself -- IN it," said Sirius, clearly having a hard time staying calm.  
  
"You really care about him, don't you?" said Hermione, sizing up Sirius for herself.  
  
"Yes, of course I do," Sirius replied, eyeing Hermione sharply. "I owe it to Harry after what happened with Pettigrew and Voldemort. And besides," said Sirius loftily, looking slightly uncomfortable, "he's like a son to me now. I haven't told anyone except Dumbledore but -- I You know, put a little stability in his life? Something I'm sure he's going to need after this year's up, let me tell you what with Dudley and everything. That and there's no way I'm letting him stay at the Dursleys longer than he has to. It'll be weird at first, yeah, but... I don't know," Sirius went on, his thoughts still wandering. "He never did anything like that three years ago, since, you know, the Mark of Ancients?"  
  
"That's what we thought for a minute," Ron told Sirius. "But how? Hermione and I were there when Dumbledore and everyone removed it from him."  
  
"You don't like calling it Nota Vetustum either, do you," said Hermione.  
  
Sirius grinned at her.  
  
Up in Gryffindor Tower, Harry was further upset by the contents of his box.  
  
"The Explicatrix. This is absolutely wonderful," he said irritably. "Dumbledore doesn't even know what it does. How the bloody hell am I supposed to figure it out?"  
  
He didn't have much time to mull over it, though, as Ron and Hermione came up the stairs.  
  
"What is that?" said Ron immediately, staring at the blue orb in Harry's box.  
  
"That's what was in the box!" said Harry brightly and sarcastically. "Dumbledore was playing with it when I went to go see him after I went and drank some unicorn blood. It's also called Cybele's Orb. I have no idea what this thing does and I don't think I ever will. Just look at it. It looks like a crystal ball but there's silvery smoke inside of it that reminds me of how the Mark of Ancients glittered. He was staring at it for who knows how long. I never asked him about it, that's probably why he gave it to me."  
  
"Maybe it's like Raides," said Ron, trying to sound helpful. "Won't work for anyone but ancients?"  
  
"I see nothing inside this but a golden mist," said Harry flatly, "and you know how great we did in that lesson in Divination. Did I ever tell you about the final exam that year? Except the fact that she told me Voldemort's coming back? I made something up like you did. Told her that I saw Buckbeak and then she asked me if he still had his head. I panicked and said yes."  
  
Neither Ron nor Hermione knew what to say to this, so they didn't say anything for a good few minutes.  
  
Ron and Hermione were just leaving when Hermione burst out, "Cheer up, Harry. The Yule Ball is coming earlier this time than last because of the trip to Manhattan."  
  
"Cheer up," said Harry darkly. "I'll give you something to cheer up about."  
  
Not caring whether it would break or not, Harry put the lid on the box, locked it and threw it as hard as he could at Hermione. She managed to see what he was going to do before he had thrown it and caught it before it hit her. Harry then pointed a finger at it and it flew back into his hands.  
  
"Go away," he said loudly, not looking at them, but at his bedside cabinet and thinking about his photo album which lay inside it.  
  
He was standing next to his bed, gazing down, pondering about getting it out but somehow didn't think the sight of his parent's faces would do much, nor would the plaque dangling from his neck. Harry then looked at Ron and Hermione who hadn't moved an inch. They seemed to have been waiting for Harry to say something else.  
  
Collapsing on his bed, not caring about the blood on his shoulder that hadn't dried yet leaving a stain, he said, "Don't go," covering his face with his hands.  
  
"I'm seriously going to crack someone over the head before this is all over," said Ron irritably, grabbing Hermione by the sleeve and walking towards Harry.  
  
"That's if someone doesn't crack him over the head," Hermione said gravely back.  
  
"I don't know what I'm doing," cried Harry, wiping his eyes. "I'm blowing up on everyone and I don't know why."  
  
"This is so messed up," said Hermione.  
  
"And don't tell me it's the Mark of Ancients because that's GONE," said Harry, sitting up but still hiding his face with his hands.  
  
"You don't think that -- maybe -- that it's the unicorn blood?" Ron suggested timidly.  
  
"Oh, yes, that's just a lot of comfort to add to our large bowl of the stuff!" said Hermione hotly.  
  
"Well I don't know!" Ron shouted at her. "He blew up on Malfoy but, well, anyone would have, wouldn't they?"  
  
Ron looked at Hermione, who was looking at Harry sitting up, who was looking at Ron. And then they all caught each other's gaze and threw their arms up in disgust in unison, Ron and Hermione spinning nervously on the spot, as well.  
  
"So you think it's the unicorn blood affecting me?" Harry asked. "Where's Raides. Do you have anything to say about this?"  
  
"I'm just as confused as you three," she told him.  
  
"Great," said Harry softly and irritably, "just great."  
  
He let himself fall heavily onto his four-poster again, exhaling a breath of distress. And there was a great deal of it.  
  
The very next morning Harry woke up knowing exactly why he felt so miserable from the night before and why it took him almost two hours staring up at the canopy above him to fall asleep. He tried to avoid holding the plaque but gave in to temptation and woke up with it still clutched in his hand. There was a strong urge in him to take Raides, go to Hogmseade, Disapparate to number four Privet Drive, order the Dursleys at staff point to go live with Hagrid and tell the police they had been killed so he would go up for adoption. But it only lasted for a minute because he had had enough experience with death. Cedric Diggory's death had been bad enough, but now Dudley...  
  
During breakfast, a screech owl soared in overhead from the open window, a red envelope clutched in it's beak. Harry never got such letters, known by the wizarding world as Howlers. Such letters were a lot like normal letters, discounting the fact that normal letters didn't speak -- rather, yell -- their contents to you a hundred times louder than a regular voice.  
  
The owl, however, dropped the Howler right in front of Harry and Harry, watching it smoke at the corners, cast his mind around for anyone who could possibly have sent him one.  
  
Absolutely no one came to mind, no one at all.  
  
"You better open it, Harry," Ron warned him. "They get very nasty if you don't."  
  
Ron was watching it smoke at the corners. Several people were pointing at it.  
  
"Go on!" Neville urged Harry.  
  
"Fine," Harry snapped, "but I have no idea -- and you lot know I don't -- who could possibly have sent it."  
  
The Howler now hot to the touch, Harry picked it up, tore the corner off and stuck a finger in each of his ears...  
  
"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! I NEVER, IN MY ENTIRE BLOODY LIFE, EVER THOUGHT SOMETHING LIKE THIS WOULD HAPPEN! DUDLEY, OUR SON, OUR ONLY SON, DEAD AT THE HANDS OF YOUR -- YOUR LIGHTNING BOLT? WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS MY ANGER, BOY --"  
  
Uncle Vernon's death scream, amplified so loud Harry could still feel his ear drums throbbing painfully even with his finger firmly planted in it, rattled the dust on even the staff table.   
  
"-- YOU EVEN THINK, DREAM, WISH OF COMING BACK TO THIS HOUSE WHEN THIS YEAR IS OVER! DON'T YOU EVEN SET FOOT IN THIS TOWN OR THERE WILL BE SHOTGUN SHELLS ALL OVER YOUR BODY WHEN WE FIND YOU! YOU BE GLAD THAT RUDDY SCHOOL SENDS INFORMATION ON THEM TO THE GUARDIANS! IF WE COULDN'T SEND THIS, I SIMPLY DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'D DO AND I STILL DON'T --"  
  
Harry was waiting for the moment when -- or if -- the Dursleys would say how they found out how to send a Howler. It didn't make him feel any better -- several people were staring at him, disgusted looks on their faces.  
  
"-- AND HE DIDN'T WANT TO GO IN THE FIRST PLACE! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! WHY DID WE SEND HIM THERE? YOU AND YOUR STUPID GIRLFRIEND CONVINCED HIM! DUDLEY, DEAD, AND IT'S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT! WIZARDS, THE WHOLE LOT OF YOU, NUTS! DON'T YOU WRITE TO US, DON'T YOU SAY YOU'RE SORRY TO US, DON'T YOU EVER SPEAK TO US AGAIN! EVER!"  
  
Under normal circumstances, Harry probably would have been horrified and truth be told there was a noticeable uptake in the amount of air he'd been breathing since his uncle began to yell. The Howler then bursted into flames.  
  
"Those are my relatives," said Harry loudly, breaking the ringing silence, "the people I've been living with for the past sixteen years. Vernon and Petunia Dursley. They consider it a day wasted if they hadn't found a way to blame me for something that went wrong."  
  
He couldn't well decipher if the faces people were giving him were ones of sorrow, disgust or simply annoyance at having had their peaceful breafast interrupted. The plus was that the Dursleys had shown their true colors and no one was bound to like them much after they outright insulted everyone who could hear them. Maybe people would take his side? Maybe they would see things his way?  
  
He didn't entirely count on it, he was just more interested in hearing the date for the Yule Ball so he could let all of it sit idly in the back of his head, so he could put it out of his mind, while he spent the night with Cho.  
  
"And there's more good news, Harry," said Ron. "D'you want to know how it happened?"  
  
Harry waved him on.  
  
"The girl that Dudley liked since he got here," Ron told him, "that was the girl that ran out to get your cloak. Your first bolt hit the middle of the Quidditch field. Dudley ran out we think to grab her and bring her back and he got hit as he was going back with her. It nearly struck her, too."  
  
"At least now we know the Sorting Hat didn't put Dudley in the wrong house," said Hermione, smiling weakly. "He was just trying to save her, risking his own life in the process."  
  
"What'd you drop the cloak for anyway?" Ron asked. "So someone could grab it?"  
  
Harry stared coldly at him. "I felt like I had taken a shower with my clothes on," he said nastily, "that's how wet I was. The cloak whipping in the wind wasn't helping me go any faster so I had to drop it." Then he went all sulky. "If I hadn't dropped that, Dudley wouldn't have --"  
  
"Don't you even think of blaming yourself, Harry," said Hermione sharply at once, giving Harry another look that was so reminiscent of Professor McGonagall that Harry dropped his guilt at once. "You were horrible enough blaming yourself for Sirius and I'll be damned if we're reliving those days."  
  
She was staring him down like a wrathful eagle and when he finally smiled weakly, she smiled back pleasantly and went back to eating. 


	30. Getting A Clue

Chapter 30: GETTING A CLUE  
  
The rest of the day continued without event, discounting Sirius waving Harry good-bye and leaving. The very next morning during Divination was nasty business indeed and Harry knew it would leave a foul stench in his nose through the rest of the day and probably the next few days.  
  
Seventh years had started haruspicy.  
  
Hermione was pinching her nose with both hands while putting her dragon hide gloves on one-handed to manage the internal organs of a dead demiguise. Neville flat out refused at first to even attend this class but Professor Trelawney assured him he would fail if he didn't.  
  
"Fragrodorus!" Harry shouted, pointing a finger up in the air.  
  
The spell worked, to his surprise, showering the area around him with a misty pink cloud.  
  
"What," said Harry, annoyed, who noticed Parvati Patil was staring at him, "never seen magic done without a wand before?"  
  
She quickly went back to Lavender Brown and began poking at the remains of their demiguise.  
  
"This is absolutely disgusting," said Dean Thomas, getting a good whiff of the pink cloud that was dying away. "Harry, do that again."  
  
Harry did it again, after putting his own dragon hide gloves on and picking up a very disgusting, squishy demiguise heart and feeling ready to give up his breakfast. He was looking at it, holding it at arm's length when Professor Trelawney walked over.  
  
"Ah, yes," she said in a voice just as misty as the pink cloud. "Notice the fine lines making up the rings around the heart?" And then, to no one's surprise, she looked down at Harry, her classic tragic look firmly in place. Then she walked away, hanging her head low.  
  
"Oh please," Harry snapped. "Give me a break. Are you going to predict my death again? No, wait, don't tell me. I'm going to suffer through another horrible experience in about two months?" Professor Trelawney nodded gravely. "Someone's going to die, are they?" said Harry, shaking his head in disgust.  
  
"Maybe you shouldn't say that," Ron whispered in Harry's ear.  
  
"Are you on her side?"  
  
"No," said Ron hastily.  
  
"Good. Then grab the stomach out of Dean's hand. I'm going to need a new one because mine falls out of my body every time she does that," said Harry angrily.  
  
Wednesday evening, Professor McGonagall pulled Harry aside as class was ending.  
  
"Potter, a quick word," she said to him. "You might know what this is about."  
  
Harry was hoping it was about the Yule Ball (something he didn't think he'd ever find himself looking forward to just three years ago). Much to Professor McGonagall's surprise, he smiled a big smile and for this, she gave him a strange look.  
  
"So this time you're not embarassed -- oh yes," she then said suddenly, nodding, remembering her promise to Harry that Cho could go with him. "Before you ask, the answer is still yes, mind you I -- very well. The Yule Ball will take place December the eighteenth. You can tell everyone the date of the trip to the United States will be announced at that time. Off to lunch, Potter."  
  
"She said yes again?" Hermioned asked Harry incredulously when they were half way to the Great Hall.  
  
"I'm going to write to her tonight," said Harry eagerly, "I can't wait. The Ball is going to be great this time. It's the eighteenth of December and Dumbledore's going to announce the date of the trip to that school in the United States then, too."  
  
"You seem -- er -- really happy about this?" said Ron cautiously.  
  
"Yes!" Harry replied excitedly. "Just as long as we don't find out anyone else is a half-giant or that someone is going to grow fangs and spit poison, it'll be the best night I've ever had at Hogwarts!"  
  
He turned, grinning broadly, to look at the faces Ron and Hermione were wearing and noticed something very strange: they hadn't looked at each other ever since he told them about the Ball.  
  
Just as per his promise, Harry sent Hedwig with a letter to Cho telling her the date of the Yule Ball after dinner before he even looked at all the homework Professor Flitwick gave them on Apparating. Dropping all pretense of not being very happy to see her again, he said he couldn't wait and again signed it, after much hesitation, with Love Harry.  
  
His suspicion about Ron was confirmed the next morning when he was awoken by the sound of Ron's voice.  
  
"Hermione," he was saying in a sort of hushed whisper so no one would hear, and Harry, hoping to not be seen, looked around for Hermione but couldn't find her, "I -- I -- d'you wanna -- wanna go to the -- er -- Yule Ball with me? No, no, I sound like I'm -- Hermione," he continued to try, now in a confident sort of voice, "-- will you --" but he broke off, letting out a sigh of desperation and then said just as desperately, "I'm in trouble..."  
  
Harry forced himself with all his might to stop himself from bursting out laughing as Ron finally arose from his four-poster and got dressed for breakfast. He let Ron go down without him because he didn't think he'd be able to keep a straight face. Harry dressed himself and noticed that Dean, Neville and Seamus had already gone; Ron probably thought that either Harry had gone or it was still safe to assume he was asleep. Much to Harry's joy, Ron was sadly mistaken. He did feel slightly guilty though; he'd never want to be caught doing something like that.  
  
Harry had just as hard a time looking at Ron at all during breakfast and was glad to get away from him during Care of Magical Creatures. Ron was avoiding Hermione, and Hermione, noticing this, kept trying to ask Harry what was up with him but Harry didn't want to answer. He would rather spend a class with Blast-Ended Skrewts than have Ron find out he'd heard him trying find the courage to ask Hermione to the Ball.  
  
All through the period, Harry noticed, Ron was walking up to Hermione, opening his mouth to say something but then he would just walk away and back towards the Dodo Birds Hagrid had collected for the lesson. Interesting creatures, thought Harry, given their strange ability to vanish in a puff of feathers and reappear elsewhere. Many times he thought he had one licked but it just screeched and blew feathers in his face.  
  
Lunch was a very strange affair to say the least, what with Ron avoiding Hermione's eyes and going suddenly silent when she went to talk to him but Harry knew exactly how he felt because the same had happened to him. Asking Cho to the Yule Ball just three years ago made Harry's insides shrivel up, especially when she said she had already accepted someone else's invitation. But Ron had to ask eventually, or Hermione might do the same thing to him. At the end of Transfiguration before dinner, Ron went right up to her.  
  
"Hermione, I --" he said, but broke off very suddenly, did an about face and walked straight out of the classroom.  
  
"What's wrong with him?" Hermioned asked Harry.  
  
"Don't ask what's wrong with him, ask what will be wrong with yourself after I tell you this," said Harry, resolving to tell her because he didn't think Ron would ever be able to finish. "You know what I heard him talking about to himself when I woke up this morning?"  
  
"What?" Hermione asked curiously.  
  
Harry giggled to himself for a second before answering with, "He was finding the courage to ask you to the Ball. I thought I was going to die laughing. I knew it, he fancies you!"  
  
"You're joking," she said, going as white as the fur she had been wearing partway through the lesson. She then clasped a hand to her mouth and quickly walked out. Harry didn't think she was going to try and find Ron.  
  
"What is it with you two!" Harry called after her, sighing, shaking his head, and following her.  
  
He got to the Great Hall to find Ron and Hermione acting awkwardly. They were talking to each other in terse mutters. Harry didn't think that Ron had asked her yet and had no doubts in his mind that Hermione hadn't brought it up. He sat down next to Ron who was sitting opposite Hermione. But he couldn't take anymore.  
  
"Ron, would you just say to her what you've been trying to say since you woke up this morning?" Harry said. "I heard you talking to yourself."  
  
This made Ron go as white as the napkin in his hand -- which when compared to Hermione's fur, made the fur look gray -- while Hermione's face quickly became the color of Ron's hair.  
  
"Yes," said Hermione stiffly, "yes, I will, Ron."  
  
"Thanks," Ron muttered in Harry's ear.  
  
"So," said Hermione once the awkwardness had died away, "you have any idea what that -- that thing in your box does? What's it called?"  
  
"It's called an Explicatrix," Harry explained, "or Cybele's Orb."  
  
"Our dear old friend Cybele?" Ron asked Harry, quickly putting his chicken leg down.  
  
"The very same," Harry assured him.  
  
"What's it got to do with helping you out with the task?"  
  
"Hermione, you can't decipher these runes on it, can you? Accio orb!" he said sort of loudly, sticking his finger up.  
  
It didn't come. He tried again but still it would not come and then he gave it one more try, shouting the words and jamming his fist in the air. The Explicatrix, in it's box, came soaring through the air and landed on top of his closed fist. He grabbed the box with his other hand and showed it to Hermione.  
  
"You're getting very good at Summoning Charms," said Ron.  
  
Harry grinned at him. Hermione took the box from Harry, and took the Explicatrix out of it, giving the runes a searching look but then just shook her head.  
  
"I haven't seen those before," she said, upset that her studies had failed her. "And what is with the golden mist inside of it? Why does everything glow golden? The Mark of Ancients glows golden," she went on angrily, "Raides glows golden, the stupid mist in this orb glows golden... Harry, have you ever made golden sparks come out of your wand on accident?" He nodded his head. "That might explain why it tried to -- er -- attack Professor Dumbledore."  
  
"Well, I don't know," Harry told her, "and that's going to be a good explanation when I hear it, I'm sure."  
  
He smiled half pleasantly and poked his roast beef with his fork, picking at it, not looking like he was going to take another bite out of it.  
  
"You like starving yourself, don't you?" said Ginny who had been listening in.  
  
Harry glared at her but then stuffed a forkful into his mouth.  
  
November ended and December rolled around, bringing sleet and snow to Hogwarts. Harry had a job not falling along with the other Gryffindor seventh years when Hagrid had brought a bunch of creatures to class one day that liked to stand on the frozen-over lake. It was more of a lesson in figure skating than anything else and Hagrid agreed to let anyone wear any kind of foot wear they wanted. Harry immediately thought of the white dragon hide boots he had bought the previous year. As such, he had more traction than anyone else but was still prone to slipping. Even Raides was having trouble staying on her feet.  
  
"IPSE LEVIOSA!" Harry bellowed, pointing his wand at himself because he didn't have the patience to try it without it at the moment.  
  
He floated five feet off the ground after coming out a skid while trying to run away from one of the ice dwellers chasing him down. It glared up at him, it's beady white eyes narrowed in hate and Harry stuck his tongue out at it. One was pulling on Raides' tail but ceased abruptly after she let out a roar that made Hagrid jump so high up on the ice that when he landed, the ice beneath him cracked. Harry grabbed her as the Staff of Cybele, strengthened the ice with a charm and demanded that she not roar again. She sportingly agreed, given that the ice dweller that had bitten her tail was yelping in fright for the rest of the class every time she went near it.  
  
"You really ought to try to figure out what that orb does, Harry," Hermione said bossily for the fifth time that Saturday. Harry was holding it in it's box in his lap, sitting in the common room by the fire, staring at it. "You don't want to --"  
  
"Repeat the experience from the egg last time, I know, I know," Harry groaned. "But, I mean, look at it, what is there to it? Try as I might, I can't get anything to appear in it, I never had any good experiences with crystal balls, you know that (well, except for Peeves)."  
  
"Maybe we could go to the library and look up on it?" Ron suggested. Harry and Hermione stared at him. "What? That's what Hermione always suggests. Thought I'd just save her the effort."  
  
Hermione giggled and Harry noticed that the two of them were holding hands on the way to the library, the Explicatrix in it's box in one hand, Raides as the staff in the other.  
  
"You don't know anything about it, Raides, do you?" Harry asked her as they rounded Madam Pince.  
  
"My memory is just as useful as Neville's at this point," she replied gloomily.  
  
"That's not nice," Hermione burst out angrily.  
  
"It's true."  
  
Hermione gave Raides an exasperated look and sat down with Ron at a table. The first book to catch Harry's eye was Ancients Artifacts of the We-Do-Not-Remember Century. Hermione had picked up another one. There was a brief mention in the one Harry was looking at in the chapter on ancient crystal balls about one orb that contained a silvery, smoky mist called Cybele's Orb but said it never existed.   
  
"Oh that's nice," said Harry sarcastically.  
  
"What is it?" Hermione and Ron asked in unison, standing up. Raides transformed into the great golden and scarlet lion.  
  
"Remember when we went searching for Raides, all those books said that she never existed? Yeah? Well, the same thing for this stupid ball."  
  
"Oh and look at this," said Hermione, frowning. "This one says it was a yellow ball with black smoke inside of it --"  
  
Harry threw his arms up in disgust at once. Hermione stared at him.  
  
"And now there are mixed reports of what it looks like!" he said sarcastically cheerily. "What is it with things changing?"  
  
In the minute he was examining it, she was still staring at him.  
  
"What?" he said irritably.  
  
"What are you waiting for?" she said. "Grab it, it'll change!"  
  
Ron looked excited. Harry breathed a sigh of exasperation and put a finger on top of it. The effect was instantaneous.  
  
The Explicatrix let off a mound of misty gray smoke and began to expand slightly. When it emerged, it had grown barely an inch but enough to crack the box. The blue had turned into scarlet and the silvery, misty smoke had become the all too familiar golden glitter of the Mark of Ancients. Harry picked it up out of the box which fell apart.  
  
"Very interesting," said Harry, not at all interested. "Raides at least did something when I grabbed her. This isn't; I don't hear a thing. I don't want to see another artifact from the ancients for as long as I live."  
  
"This is Cybele's Harry," said Ron matter-of-factly. "It can't be all bad."  
  
Harry gave him a searching look and knew, deep down, he was right but what did it do? Harry, Ron and Hermione poured over book after book, even getting permission from Madam Pince herself to search in the Restricted Section of the library. Their search -- three hours worth -- yielded nothing. When Harry accidently let it roll off the desk, he panicked but when the Explicatrix hit the floor, it did nothing but continue rolling.  
  
"At least we know it can't break," said Ron.  
  
Harry picked it up, repaired the box with his wand, enlarged it slightly and put the ball back in it.  
  
"I still wonder though," Harry pondered, "why?"  
  
"Why what?" Hermione asked curiously.  
  
"We know a Hufflepuff was the last one to touch Raides since before she was locked in the Book of Memories and now -- those were Ravenclaw's colors -- so a Ravenclaw was the last one to touch Cybele's Orb since before it was lost. I wonder where it was and how Dumbledore came across it? And it would still be a good thing to know why these were hidden for so long. I mean, I can see why Raides was hidden, she's just a danger to anyone," said Harry, smiling innocently at Raides who grinned back. "But, the ball, it just doesn't seem to do anything."  
  
"You just need to figure out what it does like you did with your mom's bracelet," said Hermione as if it wasn't anything at all, referring to the time Harry had accidently found out a bracelet his mother had could produce fireballs and heal wounds.  
  
Harry picked up the Explicatrix and closed his eyes, holding it between both his hands, hoping something would happen. Absolutely nothing happened aside from a Hufflepuff second year giggling at him when he opened his eyes.  
  
"Why would someone want to hide Raides?" Harry burst out again. "I overheard Madam Pomfrey talking to Professor McGonagall about her when I woke up after drinking -- that day. She said something about -- about magic so forbidden it shouldn't even be mentioned. Sirius came in and after he saw me, Madam Pomfrey then said she wanted to show Professor McGonagall something and they left. Why do I have a feeling that was this?" said Harry, waving the Explicatrix which disturbed the golden misty smoke inside of it.  
  
Hermione noticed that her mouth was open upon Harry talking about "magic so forbidden" and closed it.  
  
"More dangerous than Clades Ultimus?" said Ron, his mouth hanging open too. "What can be more dangerous than Clades Ultimus? Something to blow up the whole world?"  
  
"Don't be ridiculous, Ron," Hermione scoffed. "That only happens in books and movies. Besides, if someone wanted to blow the world up, what would they have to rule over? You'd have to be pretty sick --"  
  
"Like Voldemort," said Harry, staring at the Explicatrix again.  
  
"-- and that wouldn't make sense anyway."  
  
"He has a point," said Ginny, striding over.  
  
"Hey Ginny," said Harry. "And moreover, why do these things change size..."  
  
"Trying to figure out your clue?" said Ginny but then she spotted the ball he was holding and gaped at it. "I -- I saw Sebastian trying to figure his out when -- er -- Neville and I were walking around the lake."  
  
"You're into Neville?" said Ron, grinning as Ginny went pink.  
  
"Sebastian has something that resembles a wizard's compass," said Ginny hastily, "but I didn't get a good look at it. He started smiling, stood up to his full height and went on to me about how proud his parents," she went on, with a half glance at Harry, "back in his country are of him. Honestly, I want to hurt him."  
  
"You and everyone," said Ron. "Adrianne was talking to her sister the other day as we were leaving Defense Against the Dark Arts and it sounded like they were angry at someone. The only name I caught was Sebastian."  
  
"He's Karkaroff's boy," said Raides. "Fits perfectly. Karkaroff has this edge about him I don't like."  
  
"He used to be a Death Eater," said Harry and Ginny turned from red to white faster than you could say "oh my." Ron smiled weakly at his sister. "I don't think I ever told you this but I once fell into Dumbledore's Pensieve. I was watching a bunch of Azkaban trials, Crouch's, Karkaroff's and Bagman's. Karkaroff was giving off lots of names, said he denounced that he ever worked with Voldemort. He gave them Snape's name."  
  
"SNAPE WAS A DEATH EATER?" Ginny bellowed which made a lot of faces turn in her direction.  
  
"Now that the whole school is going to know, sure," said Raides.  
  
"Sorry," Ginny muttered.  
  
Harry eyed her hotly for a moment but then said loudly so everyone could hear, "Dumbledore vouched for him, says he trusts him. Snape is actually spying on Voldemort for us now so I don't think it's a good idea to go badmouthing him."  
  
Some people didn't look totally convinced but most went back to what they were doing.  
  
"Sorry," Ginny muttered again.  
  
"Oh and I find out why Madam Maxime keeps giving Karkaroff all those dirty looks," said Hermione with a triumphant smile on her face.  
  
"It's because he was a Death Eater, isn't it?" asked Ginny.  
  
"No," said Hermione firmly. "I was doing -- doing something with Hagrid last Friday and overheard Madam Maxime talking to him about it before I walked in. Don't tell anyone, but, he took out a lot of school funds from the education program and put it into security. You know that huge ship? They sold the old one to a museum, collected enough money to buy a new one. He's deathly afraid Voldemort will find him and kill him. Madam Maxime hates him because he's more worried about his own skin than his students' learning experience. With the way he acts, you can't blame her."  
  
Hermione finished her speech grinning savagely as Harry, Ron, Ginny and Raides all broke out laughing. Harry knew Hermione had stopped herself from mentioning in front of Ginny that she was doing lesson plans with Hagrid; no one else was to know.  
  
"What a prat," said Ron. "I never liked him."  
  
"You should have seen what Hagrid did to him once when he insulted Dumbledore," Harry said. "Picked him up and slammed him against a tree. It was a little out of -- ok far away from -- Hagrid's usual self but it was nice to see Karkaroff get his comeuppance."  
  
"He shouldn't be doing things like that, though!" said Ginny, sounding worried. "People already don't like him because he's half giant. But from what you three tell me, and from classes, he seems really nice," she added hastily, seeing Harry, Ron and Hermione giving her a dirty look.  
  
Harry didn't get any further on the Explicatrix aside from knowing it was another shape-intention changer, as he, Ron and Hermione were now referring to the ability of Raides and the Explicatrix to change shape when held by an ancient. This still puzzled them. Harry mentioned that Dumbledore said that the staff changed it's shape depending on the type of wizard holding it to give an easy clue as to the wielder's intent, if they were a good wizard or a bad wizard.  
  
Harry himself was very glad to know that when he held something it turned into the shape of Gryffindor House, golden and scarlet lion and everything and not, say, Slytherin. He once thought he belonged in Slytherin in his second year when he found out he could speak Parseltongue. To make matters worse, Dumbledore then told Harry that he possessed many qualities Voldemort prized in people... resourcefulness, determination and disregard for rules. But his spirits were raised greatly when he saw the name engraved on a ruby encrusted sword he had pulled from the school Sorting Hat: Godric Gryffindor.  
  
Staring at the Explicatrix later that night in his four-poster, he wondered how exactly, when he put the hat on his head, did the sword manage to fall out of it when something very strange happened to the Explicatrix. He had been sitting there, staring at it uselessly for about a half hour when all of a sudden, the golden misty smoke inside started to form into a shape. But then a second later as it became shapeless again, Harry was sure he imagined it. He was quite tired...  
  
Harry put the Explicatrix back in it's box, laying his Order of Merlin necklace, Phoenix Bracelet and golden wristwatch next to it. He stared at the Order of Merlin plaque, feeling, but resisting, a slight urge to hold it. There was no reason and he didn't really know why he wanted to, but he felt a little better knowing he stopped himself from doing it. A few minutes later, his eyes wandering between the golden, misty smoke of the Explicatrix to the fire dancing around the band of his mother's bracelet, his eyes had closed and he had fallen asleep. He would worry about Cybele's Orb in the morning. After all, he had until February the twenty-eighth. 


	31. One Peaceful Night

Chapter 31: ONE PEACEFUL NIGHT  
  
December the eighteenth drew nearer still and Ron had mentioned to Harry that Fred and George bought him new dress robes. What Harry didn't mention back to Ron was that he told them to as part of the thousand galleons he had given them to start up their joke shop. This was the money he had won from the last Triwzard Tournament, except Harry couldn't bear to keep it. After trying to give it to the Diggorys, he then threatened to curse Fred and George if they didn't take it.  
  
Ron's new dress robes were much like Harry's which were much like his Hogwarts robes except they were green. Harry thought of wearing his dad's cloak -- the one he still had, anyway -- the one with the Warmth Charm on it but it wasn't exactly as nice looking, Hermione thought, as the ones he had bought in Diagon Alley. Ron's robes were his favorite color: a bluish that matched absolutely nothing he wore but Ron liked them anyway. Harry then remembered that the robes Hermione had worn to the last Yule Ball were blue as well and quickly asked her if he could see her new ones. To Harry's relief, they were a pink color with shiny sleeves.  
  
During an irritating Divination class when Professor Trelawney decided to do runes again, Harry got an Inguz rune. Ron quickly pointed out in Runes and Limns, laughing, that it meant Harry would be feeling isolated and that he should seek out the truth of his troubles. Harry fully agreed, saying that if he could tell the future, being in Divination and everything, why hadn't he seen that Professor Trelawney would be driving him nuts? Ron then lost Gryffindor two points by laughing and then said that Harry should have foreseen that would happen, too.  
  
Cho sent a letter back saying she would be in Hogsmeade two days before the Yule Ball. She would have come up to the castle to eat with him but Professor McGonagall flatly refused. Hermione could not even see a reason why not but it was hopeless. Cho wanted to do some shopping of her own and the two of them were most upset when Professor McGonagall also very hastily denied Harry's request of going down to Hogsmeade to visit Cho for even just an hour ("No, Potter and I won't hear another word," she barked). At this, Hermione was not remotely surprised. Harry was very much looking forward to spending time with Cho, especially now since he was no longer nervous or felt butterflies in his stomach. It was a very welcome change as compared to the first few days of her stay at Privet Drive this past summer...  
  
No one was very surprised to hear that there weren't going to be very many Christmas decorations inside Hogwarts this year given the trip to the United States. Dumbledore had been telling people -- because he kept getting bugged in the corridors -- that he would start accepting payment for the trip after the Yule Ball. There would be arrangements made for anyone who needed to go to Gringott's, the wizard bank, to withdraw money from their vault the Saturday after the Ball.  
  
Ron had written home the day Cho got into Hogsmeade, asking his parents about the twenty galleons payment that had to be made to go on the trip. He became extremely red-faced when his mother's reply the next day said that they couldn't possibly afford it. Harry reminded Ron that he would gladly pay for the both of them and wrote a letter to Mrs. Weasley himself informing her of this. Their reply came back during dinner that night, the day just before the Ball, with loads of thanks and more promises that they would pay him back.  
  
"Seriously, Ron," said Harry firmly, "you don't have to. I've spent part of almost every summer at your place since that second year. Second, fourth, fifth, sixth and you've had to spend money on Fire Quidditch tickets since our fifth year. I owe your family a lot."  
  
"Yeah, well," said Ron nervously, "I reckon my dad's going to take that promotion Fudge is offering him. It'll nearly double his salary. He really doesn't want to though, he likes it where he is..."  
  
Ron was fidgeting with his dress robes, trying to flatten them as they had creased up in the bag Fred and George put them when he accidently tore a sleeve off. Fed up, he angrily tore it in half, not caring that he was probably going to look quite like an idiot at having to wear his Hogwarts cloak.  
  
"I've said it before and I'll say it again," Ron shouted furiously and thankfully they were up in Gryffindor Tower so no one would hear him sounding like a maniac, "why is everything I own rubbish!"  
  
Hermione, not knowing what to say, turned to Harry who turned towards Raides, looking for help.  
  
"Yes," she said simply, heaving herself into the air and landing on Harry's outstretched hand as a staff.  
  
Harry pulled Ron by the back of his cloak out of the way and picked up both pieces of the torn sleeves. He waved Raides at them and they became one again and did the same to reattach the repaired sleeve onto the cloak. As an added bonus, with one more wave, Ron's dress robes now looked like they had been freshly ironed. Harry then did the same for Hermione's and his own.  
  
"If Professor Trelawney's right and I die this year," Harry told Ron, "you can have all the money in my vault, eh?"  
  
Ron ignored this and left his dress robes, unfolded, on top of his trunk so they wouldn't crease again. Hermione didn't look very happy at what Harry had said either. When Ron went down to the common room, Harry took Hermione's suggestion and waved Raides one more time, preventing the robes from getting dirty while they lay quite unprotected overnight and partway through the next day.  
  
One of the conversations to be heard was over the Weird Sisters' return to play music for the Ball. Harry, who didn't particularly like the idea of dancing, would grin and bear it if Cho wanted to.  
  
When the next day arrived and absolutely no one's mind was on lessons, Ron's robes had collected no dust; Pigwidgeon arrived with a letter from Mrs. Weasley who still insisted on paying Harry back; a Howler arrived for Malfoy over lunch, his mother screeching something about tearing up his dress robes and Raides wanted to be transfigured into a real person so she could take part in the dancing, too. Harry, Ron and Hermione all said no at once to this, not even thinking about the consequences.  
  
When they got out of their last class, Harry and Ron went back to Gryffindor Tower to try and get a head start in the grievous amounts of homework given to them by Dumbledore. Hermione disappeared into the girls' dormitory with Lavender and Parvati. Harry supposed he ought to wear his Order of Merlin necklace outside his robes as the yellow and white gold would perhaps look very nice against his green dress robes. At half past six (the Ball was to start at seven), Harry and Ron walked up the spiral staircase to change.  
  
"Well?" Ron asked after he had finished. "How do I look?"  
  
"Far better than you did than wearing your old dress robes," said Harry, suppressing a laugh. "Should I put on my dragon hide boots or wear -- oh nevermind." He put them on, as well as the Phoenix Bracelet which he had almost forgotten about. "So how do I look?"  
  
"Absolutely disgusting," said Raides.  
  
"No one asked you," Harry said, glaring at her.  
  
Harry fumbled around for a mirror and looked at himself wearing his robes, his eyes glancing over the golden necklace, the golden watch on his wrist and his mother's bracelet.  
  
"I think you look very handsome," said a voice Harry hadn't heard since September.  
  
He wheeled around to see Cho, who he didn't recognize for a moment, in stunning silk robes of silver. Her hair was set in an elaborate bun. She was donning a golden necklace with a charm in the shape of unicorn on it and to top it all off, she was wearing earrings in the shape of tiny, beautiful phoenixes.  
  
Harry found that his mouth was hanging open, closed it and walked up to her, greeting his... very best friend... with a warm hug.  
  
"You look -- beautiful," was all he could say when they parted.  
  
"Oh give me a break," said Ron irritably, walking towards the spiral staircase. "Where's Hermione?"  
  
And he was gone.  
  
"You'll have to excuse them," said Harry. "I woke up a few days ago to hear Ron practicing on an ethereal Hermione how he was going to ask her to the Ball."  
  
Cho laughed and said, "Come on, you don't want to be late, do you?"  
  
"Raides wouldn't mind that," Harry said, craning his head to look at the lion that currently had it's eyes narrowed at him.  
  
They walked, holding hands, down the spiral staircase. Harry spotted Hermione with her hair done up in the same fashion as she had done for the previous ball outside the portrait hole. It was not bushy, but sleek and shiny, twisted up and fastened to the back of her head with an extravagant clip. She looked quite pretty as well, thought Harry, but just didn't compare to Cho. Ron was looking just as nervous as Hermione in his blue robes and wearing a bracelet Harry never knew Ron had. Neither Ron nor Hermione were saying very much. Harry, for once, didn't feel nervous at all (he just hoped Cho would steer him around while dancing as Parvati had done for him the previous time).  
  
When they reached the vast entrance hall, which was packed inch to inch with students, Cho pointed out Malfoy who was wearing his black Hogwarts cloak over some horrible travesty of dress robes.  
  
"Ha!" Ron shouted, full of glee, "look at Malfoy!"  
  
"Now we know what the Howler was," said Harry, turning away from the cold stare Malfoy was giving him.  
  
Pansy Parkinson, in frilly robes of white, was arm in arm with Malfoy, though she didn't at all like the way he was dressed. Coming up from the dungeons were Crabbe and Goyle, looking just as sulky and partnerless as they had the previous time.  
  
Behind Harry, the oak front doors of Hogwarts opened and in came Professor Karkaroff and Madam Maxime with their students, Sebastian and Adrianne out in the front. Sebastian had taken some girl from his own school while Adrianne, Harry was surprised to see, was holding the arm of Justin Finch-Fletchley, who was more interested in looking at Adrianne than acknowledging the drool hanging from his mouth. She giggled, catching Harry's eye, who waved and told Justin to swallow.  
  
Harry spotted the same rosebushes outside on the front lawn of Hogwarts as had been there during the previous Yule Ball. There were no Christmas decorations to speak of, not a reindeer nor a decorated tree but, again, this didn't surprise Harry given, for one, the trip to the United States.  
  
"Champions, over here, if you will!" called the voice of Professor McGonagall.  
  
Before moving a toe, Cho nervously straightened Harry's robes, fixed his cloak, made sure his necklace was dead center and gave him the once-over to make sure he hadn't messed anything up. She also tried to flatten his hair by combing it with her fingernails, which were painted a nice pattern of dark blue and silver, Ravenclaw colors, but gave up because it was just not working. Otherwise, Cho was looking very happy indeed. Beaming, she then gave Harry a dual thumbs up ("Perfect," she muttered), clutched his hand in hers, yanked on it (which unstraightened his necklace) and walked him over to Professor McGonagall. Sebastian, the Durmstrang girl, Adrianne and Justin were already waiting.  
  
Professor McGonagall was dressed in velvet robes of a violent yellow with what looked like a set of pearls and beads borrowed from Professor Trelawney. She ordered them all to wait on one side of the doors to the Great Hall while everyone took their seats. They were to enter after everyone else. But --  
  
"Potter," she said before the doors even opened yet. Professor McGonagall had a mysterious aura about her of making Harry feel like he had done something wrong. He felt strangely like holding the plaque again but resisted again. "Would you please conjure the dragon of light? Oh and, if you can, make it a bit dimmer than usual..."  
  
Showing a faint grin, Harry called into the chattering crowd, "Raides!"  
  
She didn't even walk up to him, she simply launched herself into the air, doing an arc and then landed perfectly in his hand. Professor McGonagall opened the doors and Harry conjured the light dragon inside the pitch black Great Hall aside from the moon light shining down from the enchanted ceiling. He made it much longer this time so as to light the Hall evenly all over but the dragon wasn't blinding; the ambient lighting inside the Hall was that of beautiful candlelight, perfect for such an occasion as this. Everyone immediately began pouring into the Great Hall as soon as they could see where they were going.  
  
"And please leave Raides with us?" said Professor McGonagall. "I'm sure you would rather not have her follow you all around."  
  
Harry silently agreed; he wanted to spend the night with, and only with, Cho -- though possibly Ron or Hermione if he really had to. And so, he told Raides to listen to absolutely anything and everything said by Hagrid (who he spotted with Madam Maxime over the heads of everyone else), Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall. Raides skulked off towards Dumbledore who was calling her.  
  
Many girls Harry had never seen before kept giving him looks like they thought he looked very handsome as they entered the Great Hall. It made him feel funny. One girl even said it aloud. At this, he looked at Cho, who was still beaming, apparently too happy to be with him to care much. He did take a look at what the other boys were wearing and it suddenly dawned on him that he was probably the single best dressed person in the entirety of Hogwarts. Harry, in his green dress robes bringing out the green in his eyes, golden watch on one wrist, the elaborate Phoenix Bracelet on the other and the yellow and white gold necklace laying outside his robes, didn't particularly feel it. He tried to ignore all the girls passing by, giving Cho dirty looks but Cho was still beaming as the last person went in and sat down. Then she went to straighten Harry's necklace again, asking him why he moved it.  
  
Professor McGonagall now told the champions and their partners to get in a line and follow her as she entered the Hall herself. Harry and Cho were the last in line and while clapping had started when Sebastian and the Durmstrang girl entered, it was quite deafening when Harry and Cho entered and everyone caught sight of them -- or rather, caught sight of Harry.  
  
The regular House tables had gone missing and in their place, several smaller round tables, each lit by a dazzling collection of candles floating a few feet over the tops of each and the dragon overhead. Each table seated about a dozen. The walls of the Hall were adorned in a snowy frost, resembling the front lawn of Hogwarts which was covered by a light layer of snow. When the head of the dragon above passed near a wall, the wall sparkled from it's light.  
  
Harry kept his eyes on his feet while Cho grabbed his arm with both of her own as they walked through the Hall, following Professor McGonagall to the tables in the back. He had tripped once while standing up dressed like this and though no one had made any big deal out of it, it wasn't an experience he wanted to repeat. Cho was thoroughly enjoying herself, beaming as she passed everyone but this was a stark contrast to Harry, who could now hear his own heart beating as many of the Hogwarts students stamped and whistled as he passed them. Apparently they had all gotten over the first task and didn't think that Harry meant to kill Dudley... But he didn't want to think about that because this was a night to forget about it and relax -- or at least, as relaxed as one can get while being self conscious about how you look. Several girls were fluttering their eyelashes at him. Just what I needed, thought Harry, now I'm a heartthrob.  
  
Dumbledore joined Cho in beaming as the champions and their partners approached the top table but Harry was slightly unnerved to see Karkaroff giving him a cold stare. Harry could see all five judges sitting at the top table where he and Cho, as well as the other champions, were to sit as well. Madam Maxime, in robes of velvet, was avoiding Karkaroff altogether and was talking excitedly to Professor Delacour. Ludo Bagman, wearing a top hat and paisley robes of maroon, abruptly stopped talking to Professor Binns once Harry had entered. Percy, in the most uninteresting robes of anyone Harry had seen, was clapping loudly.  
  
As they approached, Percy stood up, pulling out the empty chair beside him, motioning for Harry and Cho to sit. Percy had pulled out the chair for Harry, he knew, but Harry had asked Cho to sit in it and pulled out his own. Part of it was being nice, part of it was because he didn't want to sit next to Percy...  
  
But Percy, being Percy, wouldn't let Harry go without greeting him like just meeting him for the first time. He reached behind Cho's back and shook Harry's hand furtively, saying, "How are you, Harry!"  
  
"Excellent," said Harry, looking more at Cho and smiling than at Percy.  
  
Then Percy looked strained for a second and added, "I'm sure you're still feeling horrible about Dud --"  
  
"I'd rather not talk about it," Harry interrupted, feeling heat rise in his face, pulling his hand away from Percy, who got the hint and dropped the subject. "Didn't get all dressed up to talk about that now, did we? So -- er -- how's it going at the office?"  
  
Percy was now beaming again.  
  
"Dreadful," he said cheerily before launching into a story about all the extra work he'd been doing since Voldemort's untimely arrival. Of course, Percy didn't call him Voldemort and gave a very noticeable wince when Harry made sure that "the him that came back" was indeed "Voldemort." Cho was listening and she seemed far more interested in what Percy was saying than Harry was. Harry himself let his eyes wander around and caught sight of Ron and Hermione who were sitting at a table with Ginny, Neville and a bunch of other Gryffindor seventh years -- all of them, in fact, except Harry.  
  
Those who had been to the last Yule Ball already knew how to order. There were menus in front of everyone and all one had to do was to say to their golden plate what they wanted and it would appear. Harry, scanning the menu, was feeling in the mood for something tasty but simple and said to his plate, "veal parmesan!" and a plateful of the stuff, chopped and grated lettuce topping the cheese, appeared before him. And there was a piece of garlic bread on the side.  
  
James Griffith was sitting at a table very near to Hermione and Ron with a particularly ugly girl, thought Harry, but James seemed to be enjoying the experience all the same. Given his personality and the fact that he treated Harry like anyone else, it wasn't too much of a surprise. He probably really liked the girl on the inside and the package it came in was secondary to him.  
  
"So you really took money out of the education fund, didn't you, Igor," said Madam Maxime to Harry's right very harshly. He turned his head, looking past Percy, to see.  
  
Professor Karkaroff let out a short but nasty laugh and the smile he wore after finishing didn't reach up to his eyes at all. Was he no longer scared of Madam Maxime? She was giving him a look of her own but then Dumbledore put his own word in. He seemed to be defending Professor Karkaroff yet letting him know it wasn't the best decision in the world.  
  
"Really, Igor, was it necessary?" Dumbledore was saying.  
  
"Yes, Igor, really," said Madam Maxime harshly again. "Ze Durmstrang Institute is already almost ze worst school in ze entire world."  
  
Dumbledore went on, putting a hand up to silence her. "While everyone has a right to defend themself from danger, Igor, I do believe those funds could have been better spent on the students, all of which who will probably die should Lord Voldemort find his way into your humble abode," he said, his eyes glittering. Then he turned to Harry and winked. Percy frowned, as did Professor Karkaroff.  
  
Harry turned his attention to Ginny out of curiosity. Feeling slightly guilty, he saw that she was having a grand old time talking with Neville and then realized he'd been ignoring Cho for the past few minutes. Another question popped into his head.  
  
"Percy," he said after he'd finished swallowing, "er -- who was Weatherby?" Percy shot him a quizzical look. "You remember, your old boss used to keep calling you that..."  
  
Percy's face flashed from a smile to straight several times as if recalling a bad memory before finishing on a smile. "Oh, that was his old assistant," he said quickly and Harry didn't believe a word.  
  
Harry then looked over to Ron and Hermione again after Percy had engaged Cho in conversation again, apparently too embarassed by Harry's question to continue talking to him. By the way Cho kept grabbing Harry's hand under the table and laughing in a manner he definitely knew was fake (because he had heard her laughing back at Privet Drive), Harry knew she realized why he didn't want to sit next to Percy. He supposed this was a tad unthoughtful of him but it was a bit late now.  
  
Feeling he'd make it up to her later, Harry's attention was again diverted towards the direction of Ron and Hermione who, while still looking rather nervous around the other, were now at least talking to one another. But that was probably because Ron's plate was now on the floor in pieces, the food splattered all over.  
  
As if there was nothing wrong with it, Raides casually came out from behind Dumbledore, walked over to Ron's fallen golden plate and ate every single piece of food that lay on the floor, leaving the pieces there and licking the floor to sparkling perfection as if her tongue was a magical cleaner. This all took less than a minute. Hermione, going as red as the ketchup that Raides had licked up, fixed the plate with her wand and magicked it back onto the table. Ron ordered a simple sandwhich, apparently afraid of making a mess again but Harry knew full well that Ron was not going to enjoy the sandwhich at all.  
  
Cho's conversation with Percy, or rather, Percy's conversation with Cho, had now slipped onto the first task. Percy was going over how scores were given out, what was taken into consideration, what made champions lose points and what gave them bonus points. When he got to Harry's score, he said, in a very low voice, that Professor Karkaroff had given Harry a zero.  
  
"WHAT?" Cho bellowed furiously, eyeing Professor Karkaroff like a vulture chasing after it's prey.  
  
"Miss Chang!" said Professor Karkaroff in an oily voice. "You do look lovely today. Your mother make a lot of money in Knockturn Alley, didn't she! Is your father doing well?"  
  
Cho looked for a minute like she was going to get up on the table, walk towards Professor Karkaroff and beat him on the head with her spoon. Raides must have suspected this, too, because she said in Harry's head, "Let her. This ought to be interesting." Madam Maxime, Professor McGonagall, Dumbledore and Ludo Bagman were taken aback at once at Professor Karkaroff's exceedingly harsh words. Harry couldn't see a reason at all for him to burst out like that except that he didn't like much of anyone at the moment...  
  
Cho made a sudden movement but Harry grabbed her hand and put his other on her shoulder. "No," he said loudly, "I'm sure Voldemort will do a much better job than you can." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled again as Professor Karkaroff, Bagman, Percy and Madam Maxime all flinched at the name. "And besides," he added in an undertone to Cho, "I -- I want this night to be -- er --"  
  
"If you say that you want this night to be special I'm going to slap you for being so horribly cliche," said Cho, quickly forgetting about Professor Karkaroff and laughing.  
  
When everyone was fed and watered and the golden plates were sparkling clean again, much like the floor near Ron, the part Harry had been strangely waiting for had come. Dumbledore stood up and asked everyone to do so as well. With a wave of his wand, the tables all shot towards the side walls, leaving a big area in the middle. He conjured a raised platform along the right wall, with a drumset, a lute, cello, bagpipes and several guitars upon it. The candles had gone out above all of the tables, leaving the only lighting being the dragon of light overhead. It was much darker and somewhat romantic, thought Harry, but at the same time it made him nervous again. Suddenly, all at once, the candles moved onto the dance floor, lighting it up but still leaving the tables dimly lit.  
  
The Weird Sisters, all extremely hairy and wearing artfully ripped and torn robes, got up from their own table to very enthusiastic applause (and this time, Harry's as well, having heard them during the last Ball and liking it very much). They approached the raised platform, picked up their instruments and struck up a slow tune.  
  
Like a cat to a ball of yarn, Cho sprang to her feet, seized Harry's hand once again and, not caring at all that he wanted to walk slow so he didn't have to worry about tripping on his dress robes, dragged him onto the dance floor. She then put one of his hands around her waist and clutched his other tightly in her own. Making him even more nervous, she rested her head on his shoulder. But, standing there, swirling slowly, Cho thankfully steering, he suddenly didn't care that he and Cho were the first ones to start dancing and that Dean and Seamus were sniggering at him. In fact, he couldn't have cared less if no one else joined the champions dancing a minute or so later.  
  
At first nervous about holding her at all and keeping his hand on her waist so it barely connected, eventually, as his mood sank deeper and deeper into something he liked very much, so had his hand rested more comfortably. In just minutes feeling like years, the other students getting up to dance looking more like a backdrop to a movie than anything else, Harry let Cho move him around while he settled into a sort of peace with himself.  
  
Had he cared to look, he would have seen Ron and Hermione doing something much like what he had done with Parvati during the last Ball: holding each other, but very nervously. Ginny was dancing with Neville and thankfully this time Neville wasn't stepping on her feet -- as often. She smiled at Harry, though he didn't see because he had his eyes closed, having had moved his hand from Cho's waist to her back, the silk robes beneath his fingers, to enjoy this one peaceful night.  
  
"You know, we haven't had a night like this since our first date that time in Hogsmeade," said Cho once the song had finished.  
  
Harry felt her head leave his shoulder and he opened his eyes. Feeling it silly to hide what he was feeling, he threw away the idea of thinking anything he would say would make him sound vulnerable or, dare he think, sweet. Cho had shown before she didn't care and besides, if he couldn't open himself up to her, who else was there? Well, he knew two more but he needed to stop thinking about them if he was to have a happy memory of this night.  
  
The Weird Sisters began playing another slow song, announcing it was originally by a Muggle named Avril Lavigne and called I'm With You. Cho went back to resting her head on Harry's shoulder. The guitars were going as was the cello.  
  
"Don't say that. I quite liked that month at the Dursley's," said Harry, grinning. "And don't mention any of the -- er -- less nice things that happened because I would have lost my mind staying with my Aunt Marge for that entire month without someone to talk to. Mind you, Raides is nice and everything, but..."  
  
Cho smiled.  
  
"I'm standing on the bridge," sang one of the Weird Sisters, "I'm waiting in the dark --"  
  
"She scared me half to death when she first transformed," said Cho.  
  
"You're telling me. And besides, that was only a year ago." And then he grinned and added, "Soon we can celebrate our one year anniversary."  
  
"-- I thought that you'd be here... by now..." she continued singing. "There's nothing but the rain --"  
  
"So how's home life?" said Harry.  
  
Cho picked her head up off his shoulder then looked at him and giggled.  
  
"-- No footsteps on the ground," the Weird Sister sang, "I'm listening but there's... no sound..."  
  
Then she sighed and said, "Cackle-off --"  
  
"Cackle-off?" Harry repeated, giggling and Cho started giggling, too.  
  
"Karkaroff, Cackle-off? Well, he's right," Cho told Harry miserably.  
  
"Isn't anyone tryin' to find me," the song went on, "won't somebody come take me home!"  
  
"But I thought you said it's all right -- or at least getting better?" Harry asked, slightly surprised at this news.  
  
Cho sighed again and again rested her chin on Harry's shoulder. Feeling it was the thing to do, he put his hand on top of her head.  
  
"I don't know, maybe I'm just making it out to be a bigger deal than it is," she said, rolling her eyes.  
  
"It's a damn -- cold -- night, trying to figure out -- this -- life," the song continued, "won't you -- take me by the hand, take me some where new."  
  
"I'd like to go to your house and talk to your parents again," said Harry.  
  
"-- I don't know who you are but I -- I'm with you..." the Weird Sister continued singing, "I'm with you --"  
  
"That might not be such a good idea," said Cho, giggling once again. "My mom still thinks you were affected by the unicorn blood and won't hear a word against it."  
  
"-- I'm looking for a place," the Weird Sister sang, "I'm searching for a face --"  
  
"Well you tell your mom and dad that I'm not cursed and am perfectly okay," Harry said firmly, smiling.  
  
"-- Is there anybody here -- I know," the Sister sang, "'cause nothing's going right --"  
  
Cho went a little uneasy and asked, "Do you ever still wish -- that, you know -- wish you could have them back --?"  
  
There was an unsettling pause.  
  
"No," said Harry before she even finished speaking. He went a little uneasy, too. "I'm okay without my parents," he told her, strangely hearing his mother's voice in his head saying something he never heard her say before: "Oh, just look at him! Isn't he adorable?" Not knowing what to make of it, he shook his head and hoped to not have to think about it ever again.  
  
"-- And everything's a mess," the song continued, "and no one likes to be -- alone... Isn't anyone tryin' to find me --"  
  
Cho pulled her hand off Harry's waist and nervously fixed her hair clip before putting it back.  
  
"Sorry," she said in a small voice, "I -- I shouldn't have brought that up."  
  
"Yes," said Harry firmly, contorting his face into an innocent smile (and it was rather difficult right now), "you shouldn't have." Cho's straight face contorted into a smile again. "This is to be about us and if I'm ever to look back on it and like it, it's only us."  
  
"-- Won't somebody come take me home!" the Weird Sister continued to sing. "It's a damn -- cold -- night tryin' to figure out -- this -- life --"  
  
"All right, all right," said Cho, laughing airly. "How about we go outside once this song's over? Go visit the lake again?"  
  
"And this time we won't both fall in it?"  
  
"-- won't you -- take me by the hand," the song continued, "take me somewhere new... I don't know who you are but I -- I'm with you... I'm with you --"  
  
Cho pulled her head off Harry's shoulder quickly this time, shaking it and giggling herself silly. "Oh no," she said at once. "The water would ruin your very nice dress robes."  
  
"And yours," Harry reminded her.  
  
"-- Why is everything so confusing," the Weird Sister sang, "maybe I'm just out of my mind --"  
  
"Doesn't this song ever end?" said Harry. They continued dancing silently, listening to the rest of the song, Harry's hand back on top of Cho's head which was back on his shoulder... He saw that Cho's eyes were closed and closed his own again... He steered by himself, his feet knowing where to go by now...  
  
When the song ended and everyone was clapping, Harry and Cho slipped out of the Great Hall, Ron and Hermione asking where they were going (Harry ignored them, giggling as he went by), and onto the Hogwarts grounds into the cool night air under the starry sky. He summoned his dad's cloak with the shiny sleeves by use of a Summoning Charm done by his finger alone.  
  
"Well, at least I know I don't need my wand anymore for those," he said, as he put it around himself and Cho.  
  
She started off towards the lake again and Harry had a foreboding feeling they were going to end up in it anyway. He found he didn't care much. They held hands as they walked, the thought of the strange voice of his mother in Harry's head now gone as were the rest of his problems. But, really, when all was said and done, what problems did he have? he asked himself, taking in soothing breaths of the peaceful air in the minute's silence before Cho asked, "Did you see Sirius?"  
  
"Sirius?"  
  
"Yeah, I saw him right before we left the Great Hall."  
  
For a moment, Harry had an urge to run back and say hello but then he said firmly, "No, no. I can talk to him whenever I want."  
  
Cho let out a hearty laugh, swinging both their hands forward happily. "You sure? I wouldn't mind," she let him know.  
  
"Nope," said Harry, still half wanting to but wanting to spend time with Cho more. "Besides, he's going to be all smiles and embarass me, I know it. He's like --" but he coughed, without saying "the dad I never had."  
  
Cho must have spotted this because she said quickly, "How're you coming along in classes?"  
  
But then Harry found that there was something he had to say. He slowed to a stop, closed his eyes, said miserably in a soft voice, "Who am I kidding," took a deep breath, exhaled, opened his eyes again and then said, "of course I miss them." He shook his head, feeling slightly ashamed. "I have to tell someone because it's just going to bug me all night until I do and I figure if you won't listen to me, no one will."  
  
Cho dropped her smile and exchanged it for a look of concerned sincerity. They started walking towards the lake again.  
  
"I -- love you, Harry," she said softly and Harry was glad to find that he wasn't going to freeze up. "Of course I'll listen."  
  
She straightened his necklace again while he paused to think of what to say. Harry tried to grab it as she did this but she slapped his hand away, knowing that he felt guilty every time he held it.  
  
"I still think about them every few days for no real reason and would give anything to have my parents back but, at this point, I know it's just not going to happen," he said in a defeated voice.  
  
Whatever he was thinking, whatever Harry was going to say next, Cho didn't need to hear it. He smiled weakly and Cho grabbed him round the neck, causing him to stumble but not fall. Going with his decision to not hold back, he did the same.  
  
"You need to stop thinking about that," she said with a guilty giggle. "Or it's --"  
  
"Going to drive me nuts," Harry admitted gloomily, "I know, I know. It's just... I keep hanging on what Dumbledore said to me two years ago. He said..." Harry then tried to say "I" but no sound came out. "I'd," he went on after a moment's silence, "see them again."  
  
"Honestly, Harry," said Cho in a very serious voice and then... she slapped him.  
  
Harry put a hand to the red mark on his cheek and there was an awkward pause before Cho took a step backwards, clasping a hand to her mouth in horror of what she just did. Then she giggled herself hoarse, saying, "Harry, oh, I didn't mean that!"  
  
Granted he was upset at it for a minute, he couldn't stay angry long. Harry just stood there, Cho staring at him, arms at his sides, feeling dumb, and then broke into a smile. "Thanks," he said truthfully, "I needed that..." He reached a hand out for Cho to take hold of and they lazily started towards the lake once again.  
  
More students were pouring out of the castle now. Neither Harry nor Cho spoke but both were looking skyward as they walked, feeling to savor the moment rather than to ruin it by talking. When they reached their destination, Harry threw in the garlic bread he'd been munching on but never actually finished. They watched silently as the giant squid that inhabited the lake pulled it under with a thick tentacle.  
  
"So what'd you get in your box for the second task?" Cho asked.  
  
"I've seen it before," Harry told her. "It's called known as an Explicatrix or Cybele's Orb."  
  
"Cybele? The same Cybele that made Raides?"  
  
"Yes, well, we're pretty sure," said Harry, not very sure himself. "But it has to be because I don't know of any other Cybele."  
  
"Where'd you see it before?" Cho asked curiously.  
  
Harry turned to face her. She looked for a minute like she was going to sit on the grass but thought better of it seeing as how, for one, the snow might ruin her dress robes.  
  
"I was talking to Dumbledore one day when he'd found out all this stuff about Raides -- d'you really want to hear this?" Harry had to ask.  
  
"Sure," said Cho, grinning, "I'm very interested!" She let out a short laugh and Harry guessed that she had a feeling that talking about Raides was going to go back around to him.  
  
Harry proceeded to tell her everything Dumbledore had told him about Cybele and the ancients and the story surrounding Raides' most mysterious disappearance. When he got to the part about the book saying Cybele had hid the staff along with a friend, Cho laughed.  
  
"I've seen mistakes like that before in some of the books I've taken out of the Restricted Section of the library," she mentioned. "All sorts of things were said that made it sound like someone had come back to life. Professor Binns got very upset at the people who wrote this one book, demanding they revise it. He got a new edition the next day by owl. They fixed all the mistakes. So, c'mon," said Cho eagerly, "what else?"  
  
Harry went on about how Raides' memory was wiped and then how she was sealed inside the Book of Memories to not ever be seen for nine thousand years.  
  
"How," said Cho weakly, "how did you find it, then? I heard about that summer."  
  
Harry grinned.  
  
"I'm just as clueless as anyone," he told Cho, his smile fading. "And somehow I don't think I want to know. Like I told Dumbledore, one minute I was floating in the forbidden forest and the next, I was in some dark place with what somehow I knew was the Book." Harry felt himself go red as he recalled what Dumbledore said next. Cho noticed this.  
  
"What?" she said, giggling, "what is it?"  
  
"Remember when everyone found out I was a descendent of Godric Gryffindor?" said Harry, going redder. "Cybele's last name was Gryffindor as well."  
  
Cho opened her mouth in utter shock.  
  
"But how!" she said, "she lived so, so long ago!"  
  
"That's exactly what I said to Dumbledore," said Harry, grinning again. "He reckons that Cybele's partner was the one who touched the staff last, or it would have been a lion when we found it and not a badger."  
  
"Why in the world DOES it change shape, anyway?"  
  
They started to walk around the lake, the cool night air ruffling their hair.  
  
"None of us are really any sure but I think it just changes shape according to what house you'd be in." Harry then paused for a bit to think, Cho looking sideways at him, still very interested. The Sorting Hat, every year, does something very similar to that staff, he reasoned with himself. Does the hat hold the same magic as the staff, except it speaks the house, rather than changing it's shape? He said this aloud to Cho.  
  
"That's an interesting thought," she replied. "Well, why does it change it's length? Anyone know that?"  
  
"No," said Harry heavily. "We found it four feet long, remember? And as soon as I touched it, it grew to seven," he went on and Harry spotted Ron and Hermione on the opposite side of the lake at them. He grinned and waved at them as did Cho. "Strangely enough, the Explicatrix did the same thing."  
  
"What?" Cho asked, her brow furrowed.  
  
"I know. When I first saw it, it was Ravenclaw colors and when I held it, it grew about an inch or so and became Gryffindor colors. The founders of Hogwarts must have known a lot about the ancients because they're using all their magic. I don't know what it does though. I thought I saw something in it but I was just imagining it."  
  
"Oh," said Cho weakly, taking a breath, "there's so much -- such a big mystery in this. Why'd the hide Raides? What could she do that was so valuable?"  
  
"Ha!" Harry shouted. "I know half of that mystery. There's this thing she can do -- but no one knows what -- that we've settled on calling the 'magic so forbidden,'" he said with a grin. "Ron, Hermione and I were talking about it. Ron reckons she's capable of blowing the world up but you have to wonder, if that Dark wizard had been abusing that, why are we still here?"  
  
Cho let out a laugh at Ron's expense.  
  
"So," she said, "then we have another famous member of the Gryffindor line among us and I'm standing next to him."  
  
"Dumbledore said that, too," said Harry in a quiet sort of voice. "Raides was used to give the first ancients their mark, known by them as the Nota Vetustum. A bunch of supposed good ancients pulled it out of any Dark ancients that were abusing it and then killed them with Clades Ultimus."  
  
Cho stopped walking and bursted out in a disgusted voice, "That's horrible!"  
  
"You're telling me," said Harry darkly, referring to the time just last year when he'd been subjected to that spell and had himself spared the agony of dying by none other than Raides.  
  
He finished the story up, including how the last person with the Mark of Ancients had killed themself to stop anyone from ever getting it. Cho then asked the same question Harry had been wondering the entire time.  
  
"So... so how did you get it?"  
  
"One wizard kept it and hid himself so they never found him. Dumbledore reckons he's part of my family tree, also. With Raides well hidden -- no one had ever found it since it was first missing -- and the Mark of Ancients supposedly lost, that ends the story until, of course, me."  
  
Then he had to think again. If Raides' memory had been forever erased, how had she known how to save Harry from Clades Ultimus?  
  
"I reckon Raides' memory might slowly come back because, I mean, how did she remember how to save Ron and I from Clades Ultimus? If we ever find out why she was hidden -- that magic so forbidden? -- honestly, I don't care for it."  
  
"Why didn't they just do to themselves what Dumbledore and everyone did to you to remove it? That last one had to go and kill himself... ?"  
  
"Dumbledore didn't say. Maybe it was a new thing or something? Back then they did all kinds of sacrificial magic. Killed themselves off worshipping Cybele. Dumb," he finished dismissively.  
  
"You're my little ancient," said Cho chuckling and snuggling up to Harry.  
  
He put his arm around her, lightly holding her opposite shoulder. Cho rested her head on his shoulder and Harry rested his head on top of hers. It was slightly uncomfortable but they enjoyed it all the same -- and it stopped Harry from feeling uncomfortable about her actually calling him what he was: an ancient.  
  
"Any more questions?" Harry asked.  
  
"The... the unicorn blood --"  
  
"Won't touch that with a ten foot broom," said Harry airily. "If for some reason my scar disappears, I'll still be right famous for that."  
  
"Ha, ha. So go on then, tell me about Professor Trelawney's latest predictions on your next death! She's still doing it, isn't she?"  
  
"You have to ask?"  
  
When the night was finally coming to a close, Harry and Cho found themselves back in the Great Hall sitting at a table with Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville, all talking about the trip to the United States. Ron and Hermione had finally gotten over the incident with Ron's plate smashing on the floor and it appeared that Ginny and Neville were quite interested in one another. Sirius had come by at one point to just remind Harry about the upcoming Hogsmeade visit.  
  
"You're to keep Raides with you at all times if you're out of this castle, Harry," he said sharply while Cho was in a state of silent giggles about Harry's godfather in a tizzy over him. Then he told off Cho. "You should be just as worried about him as I am!"  
  
"All right, all right," said Harry looking sideways at Cho who was looking sideways at him and turning his laugh into a clearing of his throat.  
  
Sirius saw this and, grinning broadly, said, "You two getting on well together? Marriage plans?"  
  
Both Harry and Cho gave him a look of deepest loathing. Harry hadn't actually thought of that before and the idea of spending the rest of his life with someone, while warming, was a scary proposition to consider at the moment, happy as he currently was.  
  
A little later, as the Ball ended at twelve, word had gotten around that Malfoy was hoping to "get some" from Pansy Parkinson but she utterly refused given the current nasty state of his robes. Many people's wishes that the ball could have gone on longer was supported by Harry this time and the Weird Sisters agreed to play one more song before leaving.  
  
Out in the entrance hall when the Weird Sisters left, Malfoy was looking very glum indeed. He stalked away, disgruntled, as Harry passed him, talking fervently with Cho. Even Crabbe and Goyle were sniggering at him. 


	32. The Hogsmeade Incident

Chapter 32: THE HOGSMEADE INCIDENT

Early the next morning, Harry supposed he should have spent more time with the Explicatrix to see if he couldn't figure out what it does. He was quickly distracted from it when Ron threw his cloak at him, telling him to get dressed so they could get to Diagon Alley and the bank, Gringott's.

Dumbledore had all the students that needed to visit their vault go down to Hogsmeade where Harry would use Raides to Disapparate everyone. It was quite a hefty Disapparation; several hundred students needed to go and when they arrived in Diagon Alley, one student had accidently been splinched. Harry quickly resolved the situation with a charm. That was the limit, perhaps, of the staff's power. Fifty people, sure, Hermione suggested, but not five hundred. They would be Disapparating back in groups...

When Ron caught sight of the sheer amount of golden Galleons, silver Sickles and bronze Knuts still in Harry's vault, Hermione put a hand behind him to stop him from hitting the ground as he fainted ("Oh, honestly," she said).

"I told you I don't have a problem paying for the both of us," said Harry, grinning and counting out sixty galleons to add to his money pouch. Harry would be paying for Ginny as well.

They visited Hermione's vault and while it had more than Ron's, it had far less than Harry's. When they went to visit Sirius' vault, Ron fainted again.

A few short days after, Professor Flitwick took seventh years down to Hogsmeade to practice Disapparating. Double Potions had been changed into a Potions and Charms. Harry, Ron and Hermione were particularly nervous, especially Harry who had found himself splinched once and didn't want it to happen again. Neville was to go first and Harry was clutching Raides tightly in his hand, ready to burst out with the charm to put Neville right should something go wrong.

But for the entire time tiny little Professor Flitwick had devoted to him, he couldn't do a thing. Harry suspected Neville wasn't trying very hard but he couldn't blame him; the second year that had been splinched let everyone know she was now never going to try to Disapparate and made Harry take her back to Hogsmeade alone.

Ron was extremely anxious to try it on his own and successfully Disapparated -- but was twenty feet from his destination and found himself on top of a building. He didn't dare want to try Disapparating off and had Harry come and get him with Raides.

During Hermione's turn, she had Disapparated exactly six feet away from her destination and was missing all but one strand of her hair. Technically, Professor Flitwick cut in, she had splinched herself but had done so in a very lucky fashion.

At Harry's go, Raides insisted Harry try again without a wand. Against his better judgement, he agreed.

"Deliquesco!" he bellowed like an elephant, hoping for dear life to not get --

"Splinched again!" screeched Ron, his voice drowned out completely by Harry's screaming.

Harry, feeling nothing but a sharp pain along his right leg, which was two feet away from him, heard Raides screaming at him inside his head, "You can fix it yourself, you know, you don't need me."

But Harry screamed back at her "HOW?"

"I don't know how but you can, I know you can."

"THAT HELPS!"

At this point, Professor Flitwick picked up Harry's severed leg and fainted. Harry closed his eyes, trying his best to concentrate on fixing it himself while the class stared horrorstruck. Whether it was to stem the pain or really to concentrate was anyone's guess -- he was clutching his stump of a leg and rolling on the ground. Suddenly, a sting that reminded him of what Raides had done before now entered his hand and the next moment, his leg was rushing along the ground on its own and reattached itself. Staring, Harry completely forgot that just a second ago he had been feeling something not unlike the effects of the Cruciatus Curse.

Hermione revived Professor Flitwick to tell him what happened and he immediately gave Gryffindor twenty-five points for Harry's troubles. Harry himself had to talk about this with Ron and Hermione later.

"I don't have any ideas, Harry, honestly," said Hermione while they were trying to do their Potions homework. Raides was up in Gryffindor Tower, lifeless, as the Staff. Harry made her go lifeless the second she had finished eating her dinner.

"She said I could break out of the Cruciatus Curse, too," said Harry, having a hard time trying to write about how to make the very complicated Pain Stopper Potion.

"You can fight off the Imperius Curse, Harry," said Hermione cautiously, "but I don't know about Cruciatus."

Ron looked up from his Potions notes and said curiously, staring some place to the left of Ginny, a faraway look on his face, "Wonder if that has anything to do with Harry not getting killed by Avada Kedavra," and then he went back to his notes.

Harry glared at his flaming red hair. But at the same time, he couldn't stop himself. Did it? He didn't exactly know how he could fight the Imperius Curse; all he knew was that a voice spoke in the back of his head each and every time he had been hit by it and eventually, he broke out of it entirely. The Cruciatus Curse, on the other hand, would require a lot more force of mind and Harry had absolutely no clues where to start on how to fight off the Killing Curse...

Dumbledore announced that the trip to the United States was ready to go and they would be leaving Hogwarts on the twenty-fourth, to arrive in the magnificent dormitories of Laurence Patrick Hayden's wizard school. There was a proper Hogsmeade visit that same week. All classes had been canceled from Tuesday on to provide for the trip and many students' parents had turned up, especially the younger students. Lucius Malfoy, one of Harry's least favorite people, among them. He was accompanying his dear son on the Hogsmeade trip that day and Harry, Ron and Hermione were very successful in avoiding the pair of them. As he promised Sirius, everywhere Harry went, he was carrying the Staff of Cybele in his hand, conveniently hanging bags from Raides' tail.

They went to go visit Fred and George who were very upset that they couldn't partake on Hogwarts' trip. They did have words of comfort, though, saying that the school regularly held wizarding duels and Quidditch games complete with an indoor, or rather, underground, stadium. They said that Hogwarts was going to travel by means of ancient magic: Gates. Raides would be involved.

"Gates?" said Harry blankly. "I'm going to have to conjure a Gate?"

"What do they look like?" said Ron excitedly. "We've never had that mentioned in class."

"I heard some old bloke and his wife talking about it one afternoon," Fred explained. "There are many more ways to travel long distances, though. Disapparation is a relatively new thing. The old way of doing it is simply Teleportation. Much flashier but a lot harder. Someone tried to do it a few years ago, I read, but he died trying to do it. I'm not even sure the ancients had a handle on it."

Hermione gave a look of deep interest and Harry had a feeling she was going to go read up on it.

"Gates, on the other hand," said George excitedly, "don't have a color. It's just sort of like a window to where you're going to end up floating in midair. Hayden's school has them set up all over the campus because it's so big and there's no way you're going to travel around in a place like that by walking. They used to use magic carpets, you know, but someone once thought it would be nice to bring one of them home. Her Muggle husband, thinking it was an old rug, sold it and you can guess from there. They also used to use high speed broomsticks but they costed too much to keep replacing after they wore out. Besides, Gates are instant and brooms, no matter how fast, aren't. It's not like Hayden's doesn't have the wizards and witches to support the Gates."

"And they're much cooler," Fred agreed.

"Oh, one more thing," said George in a more serious voice, breaking the silence while everyone was thinking about Gates, "you know why they're doing it? The reason they're having this trip?"

Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged curious looks.

"Get everyone's mind off You-Know-Who," said George dramatically. Neither Fred nor George still managed to say Voldemort yet... Harry didn't bother asking Ron if they looked up to him for saying the name. "Dumbledore and friends got the idea over the summer. He was talking to Professor McGonagall about it in here one day."

"He was buying some fake wands," smiled Fred.

"Can't blame them," said Hermione. "I mean, you saw those two people running out," she went on, looking between Ron and Harry. "One girl fainted. Someone got a letter a few weeks back saying their parents had been killed," she told Fred and George and glanced shortly at Harry who was looking indifferent. "The Dark Mark had been over their house when a Muggle saw it."

"Someone had better stop him for good before the Muggles notice everything," said Fred and this time all of them glanced shortly at Harry who was trying his best to still look indifferent.

Harry, saying he wanted to go visit Honeyduke's so he could get a minute alone, stepped out of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. But the second he stepped out, Ron and Hermione joined him. The entire time, people had been curiously looking at Harry. He supposed that, while the students and teachers at Hogwarts were over Dudley, they were not. Some were looks of deepest loathing, others were of concern and others were big smiles. It was creepy to say the very least and he certainly hoped they still didn't suspect him of doing it on purpose -- though that witch carrying the eyes of newt and staring daggers at him wasn't comforting.

Harry started to think that going to Hogsmeade wasn't such a good idea for his conscience.

"Wanna go up to the mountains where we met Sirius that time?" suggested Hermione, taking note of the various looks being given to Harry. "You know, get away from..."

"Sure," said Harry.

And on they walked up High Street towards the mountains in the back of Hogsmeade where Sirius, before his name had been cleared, was hiding out.

"All these people staring at me," said Harry as they climbed over the stile at the end of the street and began the trek up the mountains, the sun bearing down on their necks but not making them hot thanks to the cool breeze, "you'd think I did it on purpose."

"Did what on purpose?" Ron asked.

"Dudley," said Harry in a small voice.

"Are you still on about that?" said Hermione instantly.

"Of course!" said Harry, feeling generally upset. He hated Dudley, sure, but how many people could really think Harry would want to kill him? "Why else is everyone staring at me? I think next Hogsmeade visit I'm going to either go invisible or not at all."

"It's good to get away from the castle, Harry," said Hermione thoughtfully. "What good's it going to do moping around inside of it?"

"I guess."

Though it had ended on a good note, they didn't talk for the next twenty minutes as they climbed through the rocky mountains, higher and higher, getting slightly winded. Harry kept going over what could possibly happen next that could be so terrible when his thoughts had stopped wandering because they finished climbing and saw a familiar fissure in a rock. Crawling through it, they found themselves inside another familiar place -- a dimly lit cave.

"I wonder whatever happened to Buckbeak," said Ron.

"Weren't you listening to Sirius during the Yule Ball? Sirius said he let Buckbeak go in the forbidden forest," Harry reminded Ron.

"And that was when he asked if you and Cho had any marriage plans," said Ron, smiling broadly.

"What about you two?" said Harry, smiling broadly himself which put an end to Ron's smile. "It was funny, you know," he went on, sitting down on the rocky wall, putting Raides down and watching her transform into the great golden and scarlet lion, "knowing you two for six years and all along you've had a crush on each other. How long, anyway?" he asked, looking up at the two of them, still smiling.

Harry did notice that both Ron and Hermione had been holding hands since they left the castle and they'd been much more talkative since the Yule Ball. Ron, particularly, since he had barely been able to get a word out to Hermione during the day before the Ball...

Then -- and Harry didn't expect it but he was laughing to himself the entire time -- the two of them went on talking about the finer points of how one or the other of them had been starting to like the other but was too shy to admit it. Ron confessed that he had been nervous around her their entire fourth year. Likewise, Hermione confessed that she went to the first Yule Ball with Viktor Krum to make Ron jealous because he hadn't asked her up untill it was almost too late.

Just as Hermione was getting to their sixth year, she stopped dead at the sound of footsteps coming closer and closer. And then a cold, drawling voice echoed in the cave.

"And who might we find here, Draco?" said Lucius Malfoy.

Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged glances then turned their heads towards the opening in the rock.

"How did they know we were up here?" Hermione hissed.

"Followed us?" Ron whispered back. Both of them were hoping they wouldn't be heard.

"Well, well, well," said Mr. Malfoy as he stepped inside the cave. He looked quite like his son, both of them having whitish blonde hair and pale, pointed faces.

Raides gave him one nasty look that Mr. Malfoy apparently wasn't afraid of, then leapt into the air, getting consumed by misty gray smoke and emerging as the grand Staff of Cybele, falling right into Harry's hand.

"Such a powerful staff," sneered Mr. Malfoy coldly, the corner of his upper lip curling with delight.

"What's it to you?" asked Harry, staring uncertainly up at Mr. Malfoy and clutching Raides firmly in his hand. "What are you doing up here?"

Neither he nor Ron or Hermione knew what to expect. They hadn't, thankfully, spoken to Malfoy's father in quite some time and hoped to not have another unpleasant experience like it again.

"Oh, nothing, Potter, nothing at all," replied Mr. Malfoy, now wearing a cold stare. His son was behind him, clearly enjoying the moment. "I do say, have you and that Mudblood lover Dumbledore found out why -- what's her name again, Raides? -- was hidden for such a long, long time?"

Raides was showing her contempt towards Mr. Malfoy very outwardly by staring daggers at him, quite like how that witch had been at Harry. Mr. Malfoy seemed to ignore it, though Harry was sure he shot a scared eye at her. But his flicker of fright flicked right back to pure venom as his eyes ran over Harry again.

"Some magic she held, some 'magic so forbidden' that she's capable of," said Hermione, not taking her eyes off the pale wizard now walking towards Harry. She knew Mr. Malfoy had a certain hatred towards her -- a very strong one at that -- being Muggle-born but she didn't seem to care any more about that than the rancorous gaze of hatred being given to her by Draco. The Malfoys hated anyone born of pure Muggle descent and Harry knew very well that, as purebloods, they considered themselves above everyone else. "And we don't know what it is," she said fiercely.

"And we don't care to use, either," said Ron.

There was a good minute of painful silence while Mr. Malfoy gazed Harry up and down. Harry himself stood up, now clutching Raides for comfort and walking towards Ron and Hermione.

"Well?" he said blankly and loudly. "Why are you here? What d'you want?"

"Ah, Potter, yes," Mr. Malfoy said lazily. "I recently caught word of your Mudblood cousin's death. Trust me, there's no loss there and you probably agree, don't you?" Mr. Malfoy was wearing quite a disgusting, to Harry, smile. "I just had to see for myself if the rumors were true?"

"What rumors?"

"That you killed him, of course!"

Harry, who had been staring like Raides for the past few minutes, now dropped his eyes to the floor and looked around, a dull twinkle in his eye. When it came to the truth, he did kill Dudley, but it wasn't on purpose. All he wanted to know was what Mr. Malfoy going to reply to the answer with.

"I did," he said sheepishly, "but it wasn't on purpose!" he added loudly, his voice echoing slightly in the cave.

"As you might have noticed, quite a few of Hogsmeade's inhabitants don't -- really -- believe that," said Mr. Malfoy in a very oily voice, his cold grin firmly in place.

"He didn't," said Hermione to Harry's defense, "and it's their problem if they don't believe the truth!"

"You sure it wasn't on accident, Potter? Slip of the finger, an act of the unconscious? Really wanted to but trying to make yourself believe you didn't? You have heard the rumors of that staff of yours being cursed and leading its users towards Dark tendencies? Not that we'd take you, Potter," he added quietly.

At once, the crystal disappeared from Raides' mouth.

"I AM -- NOT -- CURSED!" thundered Raides in an extremely terrifying growl which made everyone clamp their hands over their ears and sending a shiver down even Harry's spine.

"Are you sure, staff of Cybele? You've been gone such a long time! And you had your memory wiped. Surely you would have remembered your 'magic so forbidden' if you can remember you aren't cursed?"

Harry sat back down and threw Raides into the air like a spear. She transformed into the great golden and scarlet lion. This time, both Malfoys recoiled involuntarily and she walked up to them threateningly, her scarlet tail held high in the air in a dignified fashion.

"I have an excellent memory," she growled, "far better than any mere human," she said scathingly, "and my master" -- Harry felt very strange as she called him her master -- "is acting no different then when he first released me."

"If your memory is so top notch," said Mr. Malfoy, probably more bravely than he was feeling, "then how come you can't remember a damn thing?"

Raides growled so loudly that Harry clamped his hands over his ears again. She then launched her front paws upon Mr. Malfoy, knocking him down and roared, "DON'T YOU EVER SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT!"

Harry, Ron and Hermione all looked at each other and then at the lion bearing down on Mr. Malfoy, her powerful jaw inches from his face. She may not be able to use magic but with a set of teeth like that, Harry didn't think she would need it.

"She can be so nice," said Hermione in a voice quiet enough because she really didn't want Raides to hear her, "but she can be so vile." At this point, she was even frightening Harry.

"R-Raides I think you ought to go," said Harry, though he knew Raides would never hurt him, Ron or Hermione. "Ron, Hermione, take her outside and let me deal with Malfoy."

"You should kill him, young ancient," said Raides, tearing her evil eyes away from Mr. Malfoy to Harry and receeding back to her mysterious self. "He is not worth the ground he walks on. Cybele would have done away with him long ago," she said coldly. "I suggest Light of Faith."

"Raides," said Harry pointedly as he repeated to himself that she would never hurt him. Her look resembled how Harry envisioned her when he first saw her transform into the great lion: a very frightening one. "Listen to them until I see you again."

With a meaningful nod to Harry, both Ron and Hermione called Raides over to them and exited through the fissure in the rock.

Mr. Malfoy got to his feet, straightened his robes and, with Raides gone, now looked as venomous as ever. At least Harry now knew all he needed to do was threaten him with Raides to get him to behave. Score one for the ancient wizards, he thought to himself...

"Draco, perhaps you ought to leave us as well," said Mr. Malfoy, glancing over at his son. "Perhaps you ought to go study to make up for the F you're getting in Potions or tell your mother why you messed up your dress robes." Draco tried to say something but Mr. Malfoy just said, "Leave!" When his son was gone, he then said to Harry, "Loyal to you, is she? Make you feel uncomfortable, doesn't she?"

"She does a lot of things but the best one has --" but Harry suddenly stopped speaking, for his eyes had shut all on their own and Mr. Malfoy recoiled slightly on the words Harry began to hear next.

"Fides in flamma, fides in ipse," a voice began to chant and Harry, who would have been paying more attention to them, would have recognized it as the words to Light of Faith but currently Harry was reliving a terrifying experience.

The blackness before his eyes had made his legs give way though he wasn't sure why. It all died away as a swirl of color swam before him, forming into a picture of Ron and Hermione, Raides at their side with Draco right behind them. They couldn't hear him, he couldn't help them. Malfoy had his wand pointed right at Ron's head and was chanting the words to a spell Harry couldn't make out. Draco's skin glowed a perfect white, the white of the Mark of Ancients and the blue haze of Clades Ultimus erupted in the path of Ron, Hermione and Raides. The blue haze grew larger and larger, so large it engulfed nearby buildings, exploding them like a huge bomb had gone off inside of them. The horrific spray of blood and guts that followed its contact with Ron, Hermione and Raides made Harry nearly give his breakfast up.

"Accio caeles intus venia," the voice continued to chant.

Malfoy was laughing and he walked over to Ron's head, kicking it down High Street. He threw his wand down and his skin returned to normal. A green light tore across Harry's vision and he saw for a split second a terrified look on Mr. Malfoy's face before his vision died out again, plunging him into total blindness.

"Ambio iaculor in comae exsuscito ad aborior absolvere!" the voice finished chanting and Harry's eyes opened again to see what had become of Mr. Malfoy.

Three pearly white balls, all parallel to the floor, appeared around Mr. Malfoy's head at shoulder width, forming a circle. Each of them was about as big as his head and they began to slowly spin. A wind kicked up, blowing down and sending the pearly white balls down with it. As they crashed into the ground, they exploded upon contact, sending thousands of other similar balls in every which direction, passing through stone and Harry alike. A bright light erupted from the middle of Mr. Malfoy and as he gave one long, earsplitting scream, he fell to the floor. He was dead.

Harry got to his feet, wand now clutched in his hand and his other firmly wrapped around the Order of Merlin plaque. His stomach dropped out of him. He was dumbstruck. He was beyond horrified. He had absolutely no clue what to do, where to go or what to think. Mr. Malfoy had died right in front of him and he had just had one of the dreams he'd had under the influence of the start of a permanent Imperius.

How! he cried in his head, I don't have the Mark of Ancients!

He felt like disappearing, like grabbing onto Raides and Disapparating himself straight to Privet Drive... and then he remembered that Dudley had died not more than a month back and any hopes -- if they could be called that -- of finding safety in Privet Drive, were gone along with his marbles. Harry took a hard long look at the cold and dead eyes of the wizard splayed on the dank cave floor in front of him, at the blonde hair, the frightened expression on his face and the wand laying just out of reach of his hand. Mr. Malfoy had clearly tried to defend himself. But against who? Or, more nastily, what?

But now panic was well beyond setting in and Harry couldn't stay there forever. His knees were weak, his arms were heavy and his breath was hard and fast.

"Raides," he muttered to himself, choking on the words, and then, "RAIDES!" he roared to himself inside his head.

"Harry?" he heard Raides inside his head.

"Raides take Ron and Hermione and... a-and come back here," he said weakly (even inside his head), "NOW!"

Raides didn't respond, probably sensing that Harry urgently needed her. Harry closed his eyes and put his hands over them, wishing, but not believing, that if he couldn't see it, it wasn't really true. Two people dead in two months and he had been directly responsible for the first one. Would Ron and Hermione believe he hadn't done it? He knew Raides would believe him, no questions asked, but what good was her word, the word of an ancient staff that would listen to anything Harry said, true or not?

Taking his hands off his eyes and looking down at himself, his pants had been torn at the knees and both of his hands were bleeding where he caught his fall. He clasped his hands together, letting the Phoenix Bracelet on his wrist heal the wounds before doing the same to his knees and then performing the Sewing Charm on his pants. While it looked like he hadn't been hurt physically anymore, there was a lot of emotional pain coming on...

Harry took a seat up against the cave wall again, impatiently awaiting the return of Ron, Hermione and Raides.

When they could see him from the break in the rock, they took one look at him and Hermione said, very curiously, "Harry, what's wrong?"

Harry couldn't even say it and so he pointed a trembling finger at the spread-eagle figure of Mr. Malfoy. Hermione, Ron and Raides took one look at him.

Hermione screamed, clapping her hands to her mouth, her eyes expanding to the size of golf balls. Ron's reaction was to simply take a breath so deep Harry thought his lungs might explode, clapping a fist to his mouth and turning away. Raides, Harry was unhappy to see, was simply grinning mischievously.

"Harry," said Hermione weakly, "Harry you didn't -- you wouldn't --?"

Harry closed his eyes again, buried his face in his hands and could do nothing more than shake his head. Hermione then turned to Ron, burying her own face in his shoulder and proceeded to cry her eyes out. Ron, overcome by shock, let himself back into the cave wall (next to Harry), Hermione going with him, and put both of his arms around her.

"Harry, you killed someone!" Hermione screeched loudly.

"I DIDN'T -- KILL HIM!" Harry bellowed but then his throat got caught up with his heart beating in it and he couldn't elaborate, very much wanting to tell them about how it happened.

"But he's dead! There was no one else here but the two of you! Harry, oh what are we going to do?"

"Harry," said Raides softly and calmly, walking up to him and resting her golden head on his knees, "what happened?"

She picked up the plaque around his neck with her tail and dropped it on top of his hands. He found he could speak again, though it was hard and told them about the haunting vision.

"You're joking, no, you're kidding," said Ron flatly once he'd finished. "That's not true."

"You think I'm lying?" said Harry angrily. "D'you really think I want to go through this again? GOD, RON, IT WAS BAD ENOUGH WHEN IT WAS ALL IN MY HEAD BUT LOOK AT HIM, HE'S DEAD!"

Harry let out a groan that was a lot like the one he had let out after he'd found out he drank unicorn blood, the same one of self-torment.

"Why do they put him through this!" said Ron loudly. "Why don't they just kill him?"

"RON!" screeched Hermione indignantly.

"WHAT D'YOU WANT ME TO SAY?" Ron shouted back.

"WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP?" Harry roared. He banged a fist against his head, hoping that if he hit hard enough, he'd be able to knock some sense into himself. "Look, he's dead. There's nothing we can do about it. What are we going to do with him? Leave him here? Say he died up here by himself? Someone probably saw him and us coming up here! Where's dear old Draco?"

"He left for Honeyduke's when we said we were going back," said Ron. "You're worried that it's going to look suspicious that he was up alone with you when he died?"

"OF COURSE I AM!" Harry bellowed, losing his head again. "I dunno what to do," he then said sheepishly.

"Where's Dumbledore?" said Hermione, doing her very best to stem her tears.

"I can't believe this is happening," Harry muttered darkly to himself.

"Back at the castle," said Ron, making a feeble attempt at calming himself down. "A fat lot of help he is. One of us is going to have to stay here. We can't just all go, it's going to look suspicious."

"And then Draco's going to ask where his dad is," said Harry.

"Speaking of which, Potter, where is my --"

Malfoy had walked in but he took no more than one step, looking in the direction of Raides' grinning, golden face to catch sight of the dead image of his father. He took a look at Harry then Raides, and doubled back out of the cave at top speed, tripping on a rock.

"That's just what we need," said Harry miserably. "He's going to tell everyone that I did it."

"Forget Draco!" shouted Hermione, flapping her arms helplessly. "Him! What are we going to do with him!" said Hermione, pointing -- but not looking -- at the body.

"You can't still possess him, can you?" suggested Ron timidly. Harry did nothing but glare at him. "I was thinking maybe you could walk him to Hogwarts -- oh forget it."

"Yes, Ron," said Hermione sharply, "forget it."

"I'll -- I'll stay here," said Harry dully, but --

"No, Harry, we'll stay," said Hermione. "You can get back to the castle faster. Use that Haste Charm on yourself again."

"Why can't he just use Foresight?" Ron asked.

"I'm not using that, no way," said Harry firmly. "This looks bad enough and I don't need Dumbledore to think I'm abusing Raides again."

Hermione pulled herself away from Ron's shoulder and pulled Harry to his feet. Harry took a deep breath, still clutching the Order of Merlin plaque. Looking up at Ron and Hermione, he wished Cho was there.

"All right then," he said, his voice uncontrollably shaky, "you two stay here. D'you want Raides? Just -- I don't know -- just in case? I'll -- I'll be fine on my own."

Hermione had let herself slide down against the cave wall again, cringing, next to Ron.

"We are in so much trouble," she said, tears leaking out of her eyes again.

"You are not in any trouble!" said Harry loudly and sighing. "Forget it. Raides?"

He held his hand out and she leapt into it as the staff. Harry simply pointed the crystal at his feet, waving it around a little bit until the familiar red light shot out of it and at his feet. Raides transformed back into the great golden and scarlet lion.

"Stay here, Raides, and listen to everything they say until I get back, okay? If they," Harry said softly, hardly daring to believe they might need Raides for this, "if they tell you to attack someone, do it."

Raides merely nodded as did Ron and Hermione. It hadn't exactly hit them yet -- but it sure did hit Harry -- that whoever killed Mr. Malfoy was probably lurking about.

"All right," said Harry, "I'm going. Just stay close to Raides."

Ron and Hermione nodded again while Raides stood a little taller, sticking her scarlet tail in the air again, putting on one mean face and going near Ron and Hermione.

With one last look at the pair of them, Harry ran as fast as his legs would take him which, with the Haste Charm, was quite fast. He had reached the lawn of Hogwarts in just a few minutes, suddenly feeling very tired as he had been after chasing the unicorn but he had to keep going. When Harry reached the castle doors, he climbed stair after stair, not stopping until he reached the floor where Dumbledore's office was. Staring at the ugly stone gargoyle before the staircase, Harry realized that he had no idea what the password was and didn't have Raides to force the gargoyle to open up.

And then Harry was met with a very scary idea. Could he possess the gargoyle to make it open up? He didn't like the idea, but he really needed to get inside Dumbledore's office. Concentrating as hard as he possibly could on it, he felt his body fall to the effects of possession and when he awoke, he was staring at the unconscious figure of himself. As the stone gargoyle, Harry moved aside and then tried his best to get himself back into his own body... and it worked.

Feeling very strange and very guilty, Harry stepped onto the rising staircase and when he was at the top, then banged frantically on the oak door leading into the office with the brass knocker.

A voice inside Harry recognized as Dumbledore's called, "Yes? Who's there?"

"Professor," Harry said, trying to sound calm but not knowing how well his effort sounded, "it's Harry. This is -- sort of urgent."

The oak door opened and inside the office, was Professor Dumbledore, looking as old and weary as ever. For a split second, Dumbledore was smiling but then he caught the grave expression on Harry's face and asked, "What's wrong?"

"I don't think I can explain it too well so I'll just show you," said Harry, his effort failing him and his voice becoming shaky again. "It's up in the mountains in the back of Hogsmeade. Ron, Hermione and Raides are waiting."

Harry expected Dumbledore to ask him a slight explanation but he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he pulled out his wand from inside his robes, pointed it at Harry and shouted, "Remedium impluo!" and he immediately felt much less tired.

Harry then pulled out his own wand, casting the Haste Charm on both himself and Dumbledore. He started running but Dumbledore hadn't moved an inch.

"WELL," Harry shouted, but then caught himself and said more quietly, "Well, come on. It really is urgent."

"Harry," said Dumbledore, staring at Harry like he had grown a third eye, "that Charm is well beyond ordinary wizarding level. I myself have trouble with it."

"Lucius Malfoy just died," said Harry flatly, feeling that he needed to set Dumbledore's priorities straight. This caused Dumbledore to go as white as his beard. "I think you ought to see this for yourself."

Without another word, Dumbledore followed Harry at top speed out of the castle, over the sloping lawns of Hogwarts, into Hogsmeade and up the mountains, the wind whipping their robes as they ran flat out. Dumbledore stepped through the fissure after Harry and was able to say nothing more than, "Please explain."

Harry went through the same explanation to Dumbledore as he did to Ron and Hermione. He told Dumbledore how Mr. Malfoy had insulted Raides and she had threatened him right back then how he and Mr. Malfoy had told everyone else to leave. Harry went on about how he had gone through a dream, telling him what he saw in it and that he knew right away it wasn't true and when he was out of it, someone had casted Light of Faith

When Harry finished, Dumbledore said, "Harry, are you positively sure that you cannot make the Mark of Ancients glitter?"

"I TRIED!" Harry shouted, not caring that he was yelling at Dumbledore, who thankfully didn't seem remotely offended. "We all thought the same thing when I blew up on several people a few weeks ago! I don't have any ideas. I'm going through the same mood swings I was two years ago, I'm using magic that's supposed to be way beyond me and even without a wand! I had that same sort of dream when Mr. Malfoy was attacked. I just don't have any idea," Harry finished miserably, turning to the cave wall and banging the bottom of a fist painfully on it.

Dumbledore surveyed Harry through his half-moon spectacles just as he had done when Harry had first seen the Explicatrix, from the top of his untidy black hair down to the black shoes on his feet. It was a searching look -- not the least bit comforting -- but Harry couldn't see this as his back was to Dumbledore.

"Harry, I must say I do believe you would never intentionally hurt someone," Dumbledore assured him, "except perhaps Voldemort," he said, smiling grimly for a brief moment. "I also do believe that you would not, unless severely provoked, abuse Raides though I cannot deny my -- uncomfortableness, shall I say -- towards this last belief given the scenario with -- however..."

Harry took note that Dumbledore stopped himself from mentioning the incident with his dad's Invisibility Cloak. He took his fist off the wall and turned around, facing Dumbledore. Dumbledore was wearing his grave expression, the bridge of his half-moon spectacles on the middle of his long, crooked nose, giving Harry a piercing stare like he was seeing through him, not at him. Harry then put his hands in the pockets of his cloak and looked up at the aged face looking back at him.

In the silence, Hermione turned her head to look at Mr. Malfoy but then jerked her head quickly away from it, like the thought disgusted her. Harry didn't know whether it was because he wasn't moving or beause it was Mr. Malfoy -- both were pretty convincing reasons. There were many times where Harry might have liked to see Mr. Malfoy drop dead but now that it actually happened, the thought wasn't at all appealing anymore.

"What's going to happen now?" Ron asked.

"I believe I will be floating Mr. Malfoy's body back up to the castle and there will be lots of questioning," said Dumbledore. "Are you sure you did not see anyone? Perhaps know where they were when you heard them speak?"

Harry shook his head. Dumbledore sighed.

"I cannot deny that I am deeply confused myself," he informed the four of them. "Much blame, I am afraid, is going to be placed on you, Harry, but you are to give the truth should you be dragged into the case with the Ministry. I will try to keep you out of this, seeing as how there is not much reason to drag you into it and I daresay, you've had enough. Several of the school governors highly disagreed with our decision to not have a harsh punishment for -- but your work is going smoothly, is it not?"

Harry nodded, having been given the assignment in the Dark arts a week ago. It was very boring work and he had found out nothing about his family's past so far.

"Has Draco Malfoy seen this yet?" Dumbledore asked. "I believe he was accompanied by his father today." This time, all four of them nodded. "Very well then. I will take it from here but I suggest the four of you head back to the castle. And Harry," said Dumbledore as they all proceeded towards the fissure in the rock, "I do strongly suggest that you watch your back. With the mood swings from the Mark of Ancients and now being accompanied by the dreams, I do not know yet what is going on but I do not need to point out that someone is trying their very best," he finished on a grave note.

"Yes sir," Harry muttered, as Raides guessed correctly, leaping into his hand as the grand Staff of Cybele.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and Raides didn't speak to one another during the entire trip back to the Gryffindor common room. Harry himself felt like every shadow was hiding a Death Eater, like every corner he turned he was going to see Voldemort with his wand pointed at him.

Who had done it? Who wanted Lucius Malfoy, the Death Eater, dead, but who couldn't kill Harry when Harry was so much within their grasp, staff-less, wand-less and doubled up on the floor, unable to respond to someone screaming in his ear? Or were they just going to take a second shot at driving him bonkers? They might very well succeed this time...

Voldemort had been trying time and time again to kill Harry, and all for a reason he doesn't even know -- or at least thought he knew, but it was completely untrue. Voldemort wanted Harry dead and he knew this very well, though he certainly dreaded the day, should it ever finally come true. Or perhaps they really were just trying to drive him insane again and that would make him turn on his friends, who refuse to believe him and in the process, get the entire wizarding world to fear him? It all spun around in his head.

All he needed now was for Raides, an ancient artifact more powerful than anything to ever exist, to fall into the hands of Voldemort, the Darkest wizard to ever walk the Earth. Yes, that was all he needed.

It was a very scary thought. 


	33. The Anger Spell

Chapter 33: THE ANGER SPELL

Upon exiting Gryffindor Tower the next morning, there were hushed whispers following Harry wherever he went and while the majority of them came from passing Slytherins, the words calling him a murderer made him feel highly uncomfortable.

"I didn't kill him!" Harry shouted at a few passing Slytherins in the entrance hall.

"Ignore them, Harry," said Hermione as if it was nothing, "just ignore them."

"Malfoy's probably told the whole school -- or at least all the Slytherins -- his version of the story by now," said Ron bitterly.

"I'm not ever going to convince him I didn't, am I?" Harry asked.

"No," said Raides, "and I'm not sure I would believe you either if I was him."

"Thanks, Raides," said Harry, glaring at her, "that's just what I needed to hear."

He wasn't feeling very hungry that morning so he gave some bacon to Hedwig and, after being urged to stick something on his plate, stared at the pancakes but just repeatedly poked them with a fork, not feeling that he would be able to swallow.

"You're not going to eat again, are you?" Hermione asked tonelessly.

"No," said Harry simply and tonelessly back. "How would you feel if someone died and everyone's blaming you for it?"

"Just -- just drop it, Hermione, okay?" said Ron. He was feeling a certain nervousness that made him nearly choke on his eggs.

Hermione didn't feel like it but noting that expression on Harry's face, that one saying he'd had enough and didn't want to hear anymore, coupled with the lack of a readable expression in Harry's green eyes behind his round glasses, she didn't bother.

"Toast, anyone?" said Raides.

Harry let out a great big exhale of anxiety while Hermione and Ron gave Raides an angry look.

Upon returning to his dormitory the next day to grab his books and head off towards Divination, Harry found an item folded and lying on his trunk that he didn't expect to see for quite some time to come.

"Er -- my dad's Invisibility Cloak?" he said, staring at it as Ron bumped into him.

"Dumbledore?" said Ron.

"Maybe, but, why? He wasn't happy when he took it from me -- but I'm not going to complain," said Harry quickly, a small smile forming on his face, figuring if he found out why, he wasn't going to like the answer.

He walked hurriedly over to it, picked it up, saw that the damage done to it had been repaired and, very, very happy to have it back, put it inside his trunk and vowed to never find himself in situation where Dumbledore would want to confiscate it again.

Then he remembered the only reason he ever used it was such a thing.

Lots of post owls arrived for Harry over the next few days, a lot of it very nasty, indeed. Hermione had received such hate mail when she was thought to have been the girlfriend of both Harry and Viktor Krum. All it took was an article in the Daily Prophet from Rita Skeeter and one morning, Hermione found bubotuber pus all over her fingers, causing boils to grow on them.

"Don't open that one," said Hermione quickly as Harry picked one up, smelling the undiluted bubotuber pus a mile away inside one of the envelopes. "It's bottom is all yellowish-green which is exactly the color of bubotuber pus."

Harry smiled shortly at her and burned the envelope up with a quick spell from Raides.

"Is everyone starting to think I did it?" said Harry, opening up another letter that Hermione hadn't said anything about yet. "Oh no..." he said miserably as he took the letter out and read the top of it.

"What is it?" said Ron, strangely eagerly.

Harry read it aloud.

Offices of the Ministry of Magic London, England

Dear Harry Potter,  
I am very unlucky in having to inform you of a decision of the Committee for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry. You had been sent home with a letter from Albus Dumbledore temporarily relieving you of the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry. While the reason for the Ministry of Magic's nonaction in the previous months shall remain confidential, it is my unfortunate duty to inform you are hereby banned from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry's trip to Paladin Laurence Patrick Hayden's Manhattan School of Wizardry.

"What? Why!" shouted Hermione.

"They can't do that!" shouted Harry indignantly.

"Oh, come on, that's just not fair," Ron grumbled angrily.

Without even finishing reading it, Harry put the letter down, took one last bite of his lunch, pushed the plate away and rested his head on his arms.

"That's not fair," he said. "They didn't care all summer that I was doing magic --"

"You weren't really doing 'necessary' magic, you know," Hermione reminded him.

"-- and now all of a sudden they use that as an excuse to prevent me from going on the trip?" he went on, ignoring her. "It's from Fudge," said Harry, reading the name at the bottom. "He doesn't want me going because he thinks I killed him or it looks bad that I get to go even if I didn't. They need to get him out of there and put Mr. Weasley in his place."

"What's the rest say?" Ron asked, ignoring the fact that Harry just suggested his dad be Minister of Magic.

Harry picked his head up, picked up the envelope and finished reading in a soft, toneless voice.

You will be allowed to either return to your place of permanent residence or stay at Hogwarts along with the students who chose not to go on this school trip.

"I'm really going back to the Dursleys'," said Harry grimly.

Have a wonderful Christmas vacation.

Sincerely,  
Cornelius Fudge Minister of Magic

"I'm going anyway," said Harry defiantly. "I'm not staying here with the two people that aren't."

Harry didn't even know if anyone wasn't going but could guess that most everyone was, given that he had not heard of anyone who wasn't. With something this big, whoever wasn't going was going to get around real quick.

"What? How?" Hermioned asked. "Someone's going to notice you're not here and I don't think they're going to check for you at the Dursleys' house!"

"Unless he makes it look like he ran away or something --" Ron suggested, his voice quiet and conspiring.

"Ron!" shouted Hermione at once, not believing he'd ever take part in such a scandal.

"Oh come on, Hermione," said Ron slightly pleadingly. "Don't tell me you --"

"We're not going either, then," said Hermione flatly. "If Harry can't go, I don't want to go either."

"Hermione --" Harry began.

"No," she said firmly, her face set, her arms folded, though Ron wasn't looking quite the same.

"The both of you are going with or without me," said Harry firmly back. "I payed for Ron so he could go --"

"Maybe Hermione's right," said Ron slowly, feeling uneasy again that Harry had paid for the trip for him -- and now he can't go.

"Harry," said Hermione very seriously, "doing that is only going to make you look more guilty --"

"The guiltier the better," smiled Raides, which made all three of them stare daggers at her and she shut up.

"-- and what is Dumbledore going to --"

"I don't care!" squealed Harry indignantly again, his voice cracking with the unjustness of it all. He was staring at her like she thought he killed Lucius Malfoy, too. He was also aware of the few people staring at him. "I'm not a killer, Hermione!"

"Yeah, yeah," a few people whispered moodily in the background.

Hermione gave Harry an exasperated look while Ron stared at the side of her head. For the few moments Ron considered following Hermione's suggestion that Harry not go, he could easily see things Harry's way.

Hermione now sighed as she put her fork down and folded her arms, not knowing what to say. Far removed from being set that she wasn't going on the trip, Hermione was now unsure of everything; those four words from Harry, "I'm not a killer!" and the desperate fashion in which he said it had an incredible effect.

"I don't like this, Harry," Hermione let him know, her lips almost disappearing as she paused for a brief moment, "I really don't like it but I don't like what Fudge and that Committee stuck in Malfoy's hands did either. I'm starting to wonder how many people in the Ministry actually are Death Eaters. And who the hell picked that name," she added hotly. Then she rested her elbows on the table, propping her head up with her hands and gave a heavy sigh, the bangs of her bushy, brown hair fluttering from the air.

"So," said Ron, hoping someone would say something.

"So," said Hermione, looking at Harry.

"So what," said Harry, wanting to laugh but forgetting how and recalling a scenario in which some similar dialog had happened -- except he didn't want to upset Uncle Vernon any further.

"So is Harry going or not?" Raides asked, breaking their silence.

"I don't know," Harry sighed, resting his arms on the table, his hands dangling off the edge, his head on his wrist and staring at his left elbow with a blank expression. He closed his eyes, hoping to wake up in his four-poster where he would get ready to meet Cho for the Yule Ball again.

"D'you think Dumbledore gave the cloak back because he doesn't like what Fudge did either?" asked Ron.

"We have until the twenty-fourth to decide on something," said Hermione gloomily, shrugging her shoulders.

"I don't know what to do," Harry sighed again.

"If we're using a Gate to get there, can't Harry just sneak behind us?" Ron suggested. "He can use Raides to become invisible, no one will ever know he did it."

Hermione fixed him with a sharp stare like she was going to reprimand him but then thought better of it and just sighed again.

"We have to make sure no one can ever know," Hermione told Harry and Ron, "or we're going to -- wait, why are we even planning this," she hissed, seeing how utterly insane the idea was. "This is insane! We just can't have Harry sneaking out of Europe, someone will know he's missing! Harry," she went on sharply, "you're not going and neither are --"

Ron seemed to break down as he, too, realized how utterly insane the idea was.

"Yes," said Harry forcefully back, "you are going. Don't stay just because of me. You go on, have a great time and I'll sit here and let the whole world blame me for killing Lucius."

They ate silently -- at least for a few minutes -- after that and Harry only ate anything because Hermione, rather like a strict mother, told him to "sit your butt down, Harry, and eat. You think Cho's going to like it that you're not eating?"

"Are you gonna tell her?" asked Ron. Harry didn't respond. "About Fudge's letter?"

Harry, fork halfway between mouth and plate, glanced sidelong and menacingly at him and then stabbed his food with the fork angrily. But then he went soft and said in a small voice, "Yes."

"You're in one of those bad moods again, aren't you?"

Harry didn't answer but both Ron and Hermione knew anyway.

There wasn't much talk between Harry and anyone else the entire rest of the day. Hermione thought Harry would never speak to her again but she couldn't blame him -- all anyone talked about was the trip to the United States and how wonderful Laurence Patrick Hayden's school was. Quite apart from the school itself, even, Dumbledore had made it known that the students would be allowed to explore New York but they would have to disguise themselves as Muggles. A student would have to be approved by a teacher before leaving the school.

To further increase the unpleasantness of it all, Harry would be the one to conjure the Gate to allow everyone to go on the trip. He silently wished Dumbledore would be able to do it without him; he didn't want to have to suffer through watching everyone's excited face as they stepped into the Gate and all their friends cheered them on.

Ron and Hermione did let Harry know before they went to bed that they had both decided on going but only because "you want us to go. We wouldn't go if you didn't want us to." By now, Harry didn't know if he wanted them to go or not and so he didn't answer when they asked him, "You do still want us to go, don't you?" He continued to sit there on a chair as far away from the comfortable fire as possible so he could be as miserable as he wanted to, recalling a time two years ago feeling just as miserable. But at least most of the school would be leaving in a few days' time and then no one would be able to glare at him and walk hurriedly past him in the corridors as though he might kill them, too.

That was the time he'd been having the mood swings brought on by the Mark of Ancients and had driven off Ron and Hermione (the rest of the school was already against him). Life hadn't been pleasant and laying there, staring up at the blackness that was the canopy of his four-poster, he had to ask himself, "Is it really back?" He took one look at the scarlet Explicatrix with the golden mist inside it on his bedside table then wrenched the curtains shut and fell asleep, thinking about something half-pleasant: the birthday he had last year where people kept pulling him over to tell him a story about one or both of his parents.

Scar hurting the next morning after having just had the dream that night, the first thing he did was hold the plaque on his Order of Merlin necklace all the way down to breakfast. While Ron, Neville, Dean and Seamus did wake up at Harry's shriek and Ron was staring oddly at him again in the middle of the night, they didn't make a big deal out of it and hastily went back to sleep after Harry ordered them to.

"Take that thing out of your hand," Hermione ordered him.

"No," said Harry shortly.

"Yes."

"Pull it out of my hand."

She tried but Harry had a sick feeling he had casted the Strength Charm without realizing it because she couldn't even move his arm. He sat idly, dully sipping his porridge while Ron and Hermione were again talking in terse mutters though apparently they didn't want Harry to hear them. Every now and then one of them glanced shortly at Harry partly expecting him to hit them with his spoon. While he felt like it, the plaque in his free hand stopped him. He was sure they were plotting ways of cheering him up but he didn't think anything would work. After finishing eating, he resigned to go back to the Explicatrix in his dormitory. The very least he could do was to prevent a repeat experience from the second task of the last Triwizard Tournament and fall asleep in the library only to wake up and, at the last second, have someone tell him exactly what to do.

But an hour later, staring nonplussed at the scarlet crystal ball in his hands, the mist was still golden, his mind was still blank and Raides was still waiting for him to ask her --

"You don't know, do you?" Harry asked hotly.

"If I knew, I'd have told you the second I saw it," she replied, putting her head on her paws, lying in the middle of the circular room.

"And you don't know what these runes on it mean, either?"

"No."

"I was never good at this," Harry complained. "I lied to the teacher for the exam we had on crystal balls. That was when she told me Voldemort's servant was going back to him."

"So what are you gonna do while everyone's in New York?"

"Try to figure out what this thing does," said Harry through gritted teeth.

He tried squeezing it but that did nothing but vent some of his anger and turn his hands the color of the crystal. Thoroughly angry, Harry then threw the Explicatrix as hard as he could at the window in front of him. It hit the glass with a great pinging noise, bouncing right back at Harry's head and put a dent on the wall before just falling down. He merely waved his hand at it to make the wall all right again.

The dreary morning of Hogwarts' departure to the United States finally came. Hermione and Ron, half excited and half feeling worse than terrible that their best friend couldn't go, woke Harry up which was good because Voldemort had just said impatiently, "Move aside, fool."

"I can't believe Dumbledore's still going to make me open the Gate," Harry yawned as he stretched, finally laying his arms over each side of his four-poster. He looked outside. Flurries of snow were falling from the sky and the grass was glazed white.

Hermione tore the covers off him and barked, "Up! And he's not going to make you do anything. We already had breakfast and Dumbledore told us to tell you that he can manage it without you. Professors Snape and Figg are helping him," she said casually, her voice trailing off.

Harry felt slightly better, though he still wanted to go. At first, he didn't want to exit Gryffindor Tower but Hermione forced him to by threatening to not write him up a study sheet for their N.E.W.T.s which Harry dreaded.

Hermione put a napkin holding two pieces of toast on Harry's bedside cabinet, conveniently covering the Order of Merlin necklace and muttered something that sounded like "eat." Holding Ron's hand, she and him exited the dormitory dressed as Muggles. Harry, not really caring for his appearance at the moment, put on the first thing he could find, which was a pair of blue jeans and a white undershirt. He put on his glasses, picked up the napkin, stuffed the necklace in his pocket (it didn't do anything), the bracelet in his other, tucked his shirt in, put on a belt and put on his golden watch. Then Harry stuffed one entire piece of toast in his mouth, choked on it, chewed, swallowed and threw the other piece in the garbage along with the thought of having a cheerful morning. He pictured himself chopping Voldemort's head off with a sword before exiting out of the portrait hole.

People were still skirting him in the corridors and walking quickly when he was near just about anyone. Even Craig Stone and James Griffith, who normally got on very well with Harry, were moving more quickly in his presence -- he had seen them going downstairs. Not knowing where else to go, he followed them (to their dismay) and saw that a throng of people were collecting in the vast, echoing entrance hall. While the entrance hall was big, it seemed to be holding the entirety of Hogwarts, all of them dressed as Muggles to the best of their -- or their friends' -- ability.

Malfoy was surrounded by a band of Slytherin girls, Pansy Parkinson at his side and Crabbe and Goyle on the other. He spotted Harry walking in behind Craig and shouted, "Hey, look! It's Potter the murderer!"

Harry stopped dead while Craig and James walked even faster over to the crowd which, all at once, drew a breath and turned to Harry, whose face was already becoming warm. Malfoy, though he shouted determinedly, had a hard time keeping the fear off his face.

"I didn't kill anyone," said Harry, standing there and feeling stupid while everyone stared at him. He felt Raides brush past him, the crowd splitting to let her pass.

"Sure you didn't!" Malfoy shouted, his voice now shaking slightly. "You killed Dudley! Everyone knows you hate those Muggles you live with! It's no mystery by the Howler you got from them!"

"The only reason you let him follow you around, Dudley being Muggle-born, is because you know he hates me as much as you do," Harry retorted. "AND I DIDN'T MEAN TO KILL DUDLEY!" he bellowed.

"On accident, slip of the finger, was it?" said Parkinson, her voice shaking more than Malfoy's. "And you killed Draco's father, too! Where's it gonna end, Potter, huh? Where?"

Harry stook a step forward and the front row of the crowd took a step back. "I didn't kill anyone!" Harry shouted.

"Oh come on!" said Malfoy in a pleading sort of voice. "You hated my father! You were there when he died and you were the ONLY one!"

Harry wished Dumbledore would have lied but knew Dumbledore to do no such thing... Well, he did once and Harry really couldn't see why he wouldn't do it again except to avoid terrible consequences he couldn't foresee at the moment.

"And you had that -- that evil lion with you," said Malfoy with a half glance at that seven foot lion which was so close to him that Harry could see Malfoy shaking.

"I am not evil," Raides assured him coolly, "but your father insulted me and I do have ten thousand years of pride to hold up. I encourage my master's needs, whether they be to save a life or to end it."

Harry wished Raides hadn't spoken because Malfoy looked like his worst nightmares had come true.

"SEE?" he bellowed, his voice shaking more than Neville when Professor Snape had been breathing down his neck in Potions classes. "She wanted him dead, too! You killed him, Potter, and you can't convince me otherwise!" stated Malfoy (a little more bravely than he felt, thought Harry).

This was Harry's breaking point. He pulled out his wand which he distinctly remembered not putting inside his pocket.

"AVADA KEDAVARA IMMORTALA!" he bellowed, not knowing where the last word came from.

As a shock from his wand made him drop it, a jet of green light erupted from its tip on its way down and halted halfway between himself and Malfoy. The entire crowd of students drew a gasp of breath, Malfoy staring through the green light at Harry's face which had a new coat of hate freshly painted on it. Harry felt dearly like having the spell continue onward, striking Malfoy right between the eyes. Standing there, his nerve failing him as each second that he hadn't done it passed by, he finally heard a voice calling, "Harry!" The green light bursted in the air and Malfoy fainted in Pansy Parkinson's arms.

Harry, who was expecting expulsion or at the very least another term long study in the Dark arts, couldn't believe it when Dumbledore simply ordered him to return to Gryffindor Tower and to leave Raides downstairs and make sure she listened to himself and Professor McGonagall. Before he turned to go, he caught sight of Ron and Hermione, both of whom, after what he just did he wasn't surprised to see, looked to be glad to get away from him. He picked up his wand and left, his heart finally sinking back into his chest as he rounded on the portrait of the Fat Lady.

He hadn't been clutching the plaque tightly in his hand, sitting on a squashy armchair by the fire for more than five minutes when someone with a long, silver beard entered the common room. Harry didn't want to look at Dumbledore as he was far too ashamed of himself at the moment. He recalled a time two years ago where a similar scene had happened -- except, at the time...

"I do not know, Harry," said Dumbledore gravely, "what has come over you lately but this behavior cannot continue." Harry suddenly felt like asking why he returned his father's Invisibility Cloak but, given that look on Dumbledore's face, the one that cleanly said the situation was only going to get worse, he didn't think it was the time or place. "Maybe it is best that you do not go on the trip to the United States and take some time alone to -- think things over?"

"I don't need time to think thing's over," said Harry quietly, "I just need to find a way to convince everyone that I didn't KILL ANYONE!"

"And I have confidence that you will find a way," said Dumbledore calmly. He took a seat on an armchair across from Harry.

"How?" said Harry angrily.

"Whenever your mother was upset at something, she would take a time out," Dumbledore told Harry, who was suddenly listening better. Dumbledore, noticing this, smiled briefly and continued. "Perhaps open a book and read for a few minutes to get her mind off it and when she was good and ready -- and she wasn't thinking irrationally anymore, as that is what anger does to us, it makes us think irrational thoughts -- she would have at it again. Lily had a good melon between her shoulders that she used wisely. She would have told you how she deals with such a thing and I think, right about now, she would have sent you to your room, confiscated your wand, given you all your school books and ordered you to study."

"I don't care what she would have done," Harry lied, knowing Dumbledore would see right through it, "I want to go on that stupid trip."

"Your father might have pleaded with her for a minute or two to let you watch television for fifteen minutes before doing so or at the very least, help you with your studies," Dumbledore continued as if Harry never spoke.

"Why'd Fudge do that?" said Harry. "I didn't do anything wrong!"

"I will never understand Muggle television," said Dumbledore, lost in thought. "How do they put all that stuff in that tiny little wire?"

Then, Harry, who couldn't see where this conversation was going considering Dumbledore wasn't listening to him, voiced this.

"The point is, Harry," said Dumbledore, coming out of it, "that you are going through something --"

"Again," said Harry in a soft tone of anger.

"-- and I know it must be hard --"

"You're right it's hard!" said Harry a bit more loudly than he intended.

"-- and I know how you must feel --"

"No, you don't," said Harry more loudly still.

"-- but if things don't change, things won't improve," Dumbledore finished. "I realize that you had two very near fatal accidents this past summer, one of them Miss Chang herself and that to save her life, you had to expose yourself to one Miss Marjorie Dursley. The situation had since been cleared by Arthur Weasley and the decision to not put a Memory Charm on her actually fell in your hands. The Committee, Arthur tells me, honored your decision, however questionable, to leave her be. In the years that you have been at Hogwarts, you have grown up far more than you had your eleven years under the Dursleys' care --"

"Forget this," Harry mumbled under his breath, though the look on his face told Dumbledore what he'd muttered.

He couldn't exactly answer himself when he asked why he wanted to walk out in the middle of Dumbledore's speech. He heard Dumbledore saying "Harry, please take a time out of your own to collect your thoughts and think rationally again," but didn't care much for the advice.

"Raides," he called sharply and firmly in his head, "come up here."

"As you wish," she replied, "though Hagrid is starting to drive me nuts with his suggestions to change my dinner menu."

"And don't listen to them anymore for now, either," Harry told her.

He turned around to see if Dumbledore had gone and hoped he was because he couldn't look at him anymore for the day, feeling too angry at himself for his actions so far. Dumbledore, thankfully, was gone and within a minute, a muffled banging signaled Raides' arrival at the Fat Lady's portrait. Harry let her in and he stomped up the spiral stairs, Raides trotting merrily behind him, disappearing atop Gryffindor Tower and doing anything but taking a time out.

The future wasn't looking so bright and Dumbledore's word, that he could convince everyone that he hadn't done anything wrong wasn't looking so doable. What Harry needed right now as he collected his books to head to the library to work on that stupid Dark arts study was someone to spill himself to. He stuffed three books in his bag along with parchment, all the while his mouth half open, a dull twinkle in his eye. Two people, of course, came to mind immediately. Harry just hoped that, after the near-perfect night he had with Cho during the Yule Ball she wouldn't mind some more of his babbling. Sirius, on the other hand, Harry was sure would want to hear what was bothering him.

Knowing that he had driven off Ron and Hermione -- again -- uneased him a great deal. Pushing open the portrait hole, he couldn't be more grateful for them, though, than for what they did last year. As hopeless as it looked, at least one of them pushed the other to never stop looking for clues to find the Staff of Cybele. Recalling the feeling of knowing Sirius was as good as dead, he didn't know what'd he do if he hadn't found Raides.

But there was no denying it, he had to explain to someone -- especially those two -- what he was feeling. But, running back to Gryffindor Tower because he had forgotten to take something to write with in all his thoughts, what was there to explain? Harry wasn't quite sure anyone would understand... and he didn't even understand it... He sincerely hoped Sirius and Cho's reply would at least not make him feel any worse and that Cho wouldn't coldly walk out on him again... A certain guilt twanged inside of him. Why should he think that? But, anyway...

Hello, he saw himself writing as he grabbed that familiar pen on his desk and headed back to the library, I don't know why I blew up on Malfoy and nearly killed him. I was just angry I guess -- really angry. Thanks, Harry.

And then he didn't think of anything for a good minute because it sounded dumb.

As for Ron and Hermione, taking his books out in the library and sitting in Hermione's usual seat, staring at an empty piece of parchment with a blank expression, his mouth still hanging open, he wasn't quite sure Hedwig would make it to New York...

And then he headed off to the Owlery because he simply couldn't work. A small voice in the back of Harry's head kept telling him to keep it to himself if you want to be sure no one will get upset. It was a slightly louder voice that kept saying, "tell someone something, anything, because if you don't, you're going to regret it." 


	34. A Rash Decision

Chapter 34: A RASH DECISION 

The Owlery, smelling horrible and feeling very drafty as usual, was holding many less owls than usual. Harry supposed that most students had taken their owls to New York with them ,and the absence of Pigwidgeon confirmed this. Hedwig, lonely and munching on a dead vole, was sitting on the messy floor. At once, she abandoned her meal to land on a perch, looking important, her leg stuck out. Harry couldn't help but appreciate her eagerness, but when he told her he didn't have a letter yet, she went back to her lunch.

Not wanting to sit on owl droppings, Harry tried a hand at more magic without a wand. At first he tried waving a few fingers but that didn't work. His patience already gone, he bellowed "Move!" at it which made a tawny fall off his perch, painfully peck Harry once one the head then show him a disgruntled tail. But it worked and the spot he was hoping for was now poop-free.

Sitting up against the wall Indian style, the parchment on a book on his legs, he began to write.

Dear Cho,  
I don't really know how to say this so I'm just going to say it however it comes. You probably heard about Lucius Malfoy and if you didn't, well, he's dead.

Harry had to stop for a minute because he realized his hand was shaking. She would believe him, wouldn't she, when he said he hadn't done it?

I was there when it happened. Ron, Hermione and I were up in the caves in the back of Hogsmeade when we heard his and dear Draco's voice. Raides got testy during the conversation so I told Ron and Hermione to take her out. Mr. Malfoy told Draco to leave, too, and not a minute had passed when it happened. I don't know how and I don't think I want to but I had one of those strange visions that I had the first summer I found out I had the Mark of Ancients. I'll spare you the details, it wasn't true, but I heard someone saying the words to Light of Faith and when it was gone, Mr. Malfoy was dead, right on the floor there in front of me.

He scribbled the last few words very fast for fear and put the pen down, arching forward and resting his forehead on his palm because he didn't think there was enough blood rushing to his head to stop him from feeling sick. And there wasn't so he just sat there for another good minute to let the feeling pass. Harry had always felt better as he told someone something but whether it was the fact that writing it out wasn't the same as saying it or this particular thing was just very difficult, he couldn't say.

Draco's told the entire school I killed his dad and you can't blame him because Raides threatened to kill Mr. Malfoy. She jumped on him when he insulted her and looked ready to bite his head off. She could have done a clean job of it, too. I'd like to know who would want him dead but it just seems odd that as soon as I have one of those weird dreams again, someone dies. Does that bother you as much as it bothers me? Raides is starting to scare me but the best is yet to come.

I've been banned from that trip to New York. I'm sitting here in the Owlery writing this because I nearly killed Draco with some spell I never knew. The green light from Avada Kedavra shot out the end of my wand but stopped halfway between him and I.

Harry stopped again before getting to write down that he had, for a few very frightening moments, actually wanted to kill Draco Malfoy. He looked up at Hedwig who had just finished eating the vole. She walked along the floor and stopped at Harry's feet, jumping up a few inches to land on his knee. While she was no Fawkes, whose warm weight and eerie phoenix song had come to Harry's rescue many times before, the warmth of something managed to edge out something. That something was a pair of cold eyes that Harry kept seeing in front of him since he started writing, the cold dead ones belonging to Lucius Malfoy.

His thoughts wandered for a moment on Raides who was up in his dormitory, as lifeless as two people had become in under a few months. While he knew full well she wouldn't hurt anyone unless Harry ordered her to, that wasn't very comforting either. Raides was very old and very powerful and would be a great asset should he find himself face to face with Voldemort but the very problem was that she was, in fact, very old and very powerful and swaying her the wrong way, as Harry feared he might soon find out, could be a very bad thing. And what would have happened if he had gone just a few seconds further while he held his hand, rubbing it where his wand had shocked him? Would he have actually let the spell go -- though he had no idea how to or why it had stopped in the first place?

I thought about sneaking into the Gates we're using to get there but I don't really want to upset Dumbledore. He trusts I won't abuse Raides and I don't think sneaking invisible into a Gate wouldn't count as abuse. And you'd think in your right mind Dumbledore would have expelled me right then and there but he didn't. He just sent me up to my room (funny, I never thought I'd get to say that) --

And he stopped again, his head wandering -- though he didn't want to think about that at the moment. Harry then scribbled out what he wrote in parentheses.

He told me to leave Raides with him and he came up eventually. When that conversation ended, I blew up on him, took Raides back, telling her to ignore him and, well there wasn't much in between so here I am writing to you. I don't know what else to say so I'm just going to tell you exactly how I feel.

For starters, given the choice of never finding out I was a wizard and getting stuck safely back in Privet Drive with the Dursleys, I might actually take it. The whole school thinks I killed Mr. Malfoy and they're convinced I meant to kill Dudley, too. Of all people, Ron and Hermione looked scared when I saw them after I nearly killed Draco. I just want to go on that trip to New York to sit in a dormitory in some magnificent school and argue with Ron and Hermione what the next dangerous task that I get to watch someone else do is going to be.

That's great, thought Harry, in the minutes I've been writing, I forgot I also got myself into the tournament.

I have no idea what my clue, that thing called the Explicatrix, does. Its a shape-intention changer. That's a term Hermione and I settled on. Raides can be called that, too. It means something changes shape when an ancient holds it. The Explicatrix was Ravenclaw colors when I first saw it and obviously it changed into Gryffindor colors when I first touched it. I'm no closer to finding out how to work it than I am in finding out what's going on with me and I've spent a lot of time with it. The best I can think to do is throw it. I did that once. It bounced off a window and put a dent in the wall.

All I know about it is what I told you, that being that our good friend Cybele made it. You know, it's funny. I remember Bagman saying one of the clues will be harder to figure out than the rest and I was right in thinking it was going to be mine. Maybe if I just get mad and throw it at the ground it may do something? Who knows. Be nice if it would just tell me what it does but first Professor Trelawney will tell me I'm going to die a happy man with a wife and two kids. If you get any ideas, let me know.

Oh great, now I just realized why Dumbledore didn't expell me. I certainly don't have anywhere to go now and they're all under the impression that if I do go out on my own, I'll end up dead. Not that I don't agree with them, it's just not very comforting knowing that I'm not getting punished for a reason like that.

Harry put his pen down once more but not due to fear or anxienty -- this time it was anger. He had been thinking about this before and it was just as unpleasant doing so now as it was then. For the time being, he still wanted to be safely stuck back in Privet Drive, never knowing he was a wizard, never knowing his parents hadn't died in a car crash and never finding out about Voldemort. Moreover, now he wish he had never found Raides.

I don't know what I'm doing here anymore. I'm losing it and I can't explain any of it. It'd be nice to, er, spend some time together so I can just forget about all this for a while but seeing as how I won't probably be allowed to set foot outside this castle until the second and third task -- if I'm still alive by the third task...

This time Harry didn't put his pen down but he stared blankly at some space to the left of Hedwig as he had been doing whenever he did put it down. He probably shouldn't have written that but the more times he said it to himself, the more scared he became that, of all the things he'd said so far that had come true... He hoped this was one of the ones that wouldn't. It was some of the anxiety he'd been holding since he'd seen the cold, gray eyes of Lucius Malfoy look colder and grayer than he'd ever seen them and it felt strangely good to let someone know how he felt -- however horrorstruck they might be when they read it.

Harry now took the time to look over his letter. It was very long, longer than anything he'd ever written but he felt he needed to get it all out while he was in the mood. He wasn't sure if, in five minutes from now, he'd be able to continue like this, spilling it as it came. With that in mind, he gave his head a shake and continued on, not caring how much more parchment it took. He just hoped the pen wasn't going to run out of ink...

I think I'll stop here because this is already quite long. I really needed someone to talk to just now and don't particularly feel like telling all this to Sirius. I'm just glad you're there if I need you. Oh and I don't suspect I'll have many people to talk to if I did manage to get to New York anyway as I saw Ron and Hermione holding hands as they left the common room this morning and Craig and James were also scared of me. Lastly, are you coming to the second task?

Love,  
Harry

Harry checked over his letter once more, dotting all the Is he'd forgotten to dot and crossing all the Ts he'd forgotten to cross. He folded up the one piece of parchment he used (both front and back) and covered it with another so no one else could read it. After stuffing it in an envelope he pulled out of his bag, he tied it all to Hedwig's leg. Walking her over to the window, his stomach felt no less horrible than it had before he started writing as Hedwig soared into the afternoon sky.

With Hedwig gone and a letter off to Cho, Harry had no inclination to start doing more work -- though he didn't have much choice. Professor Figg had given seventh years loads of homework concerning the properties of brimstone; the active ingredient in Belladonna, Alkaloid; nightshade plants in general and why moonstone has no magical properties at all. She had said they would be making a very potent pain killing potion. Hermione said they would using that horrendously-awful smelling potion ingredient they had to get very soon.

It wasn't until dinner that night did Harry find out how many people really stayed behind. When he walked into the Great Hall to eat, the usual four House tables were gone, replaced by a single one positioned against the wall near the entrance. Sitting at it was Dumbledore, three Hogwarts students he didn't recognize, Professor Trelawney (who immediately fixed him with her tragic look) and Argus Filch. Dumbledore beckoned Harry over, whose pace of walking had abruptly slowed when he saw the setting in front of him. He hadn't expected to see anyone at all and wasn't pleased to see the three students recoil at the sight of him. The Hogwarts ghosts were floating in and out but Nearly Headless Nick was sitting -- or rather, floating -- between Dumbledore and Filch.

"Harry!" called Dumbledore brightly as if he forgot what had happened earlier that day. "I thought it silly to use the House tables as there are so few of us. Sibyll here," he went on, nodding towards Professor Trelawney, "has kindly agreed to join us while her -- er -- Inner Eye cannot be clouded in the absence of the normal rustle and bustle of the castle."

Harry saw Professor Trelawney give a subtle look of dissent he suspected that, while Dumbledore had seen, chose to ignore. She was looking at Harry like she expected him to burst any moment but he, too, chose to ignore this. The three students, who were as lazily dressed as Harry, the two girls in pajamas (though one was wearing a very deep red cloak to keep warm) and the boy in jeans and a t-shirt, were eyeing him nervously so he sat down on Dumbledore's side, taking a piece of ham steak.

Because he wanted to make a conversation (and possibly convince the three he wasn't such a bad guy after all), he said, "So why didn't you three go on the trip?"

One of the girls shot him another nervous glance, swallowed, and said slowly, "Did you really k --"

"Can we please not talk about that," said Harry quickly, his voice shaking slightly.

There was a nasty silence.

"Sarah's father didn't want her to go," said the boy.

Harry couldn't see how this could possibly be so he asked, "Why not?"

The girl named Sarah looked between Harry and the boy that spoke and muttered barely audibly, "I don't know, he just said, 'No, and that's final.'"

Something struck him as odd about this story but figured there had to be more people out in the world like the Dursleys. If one set of them existed, there had to, unfortunately, be more...

The boy broke a faint smile and added, "But we stayed behind because she couldn't go."

Harry was forcefully reminded of Ron and Hermione wanting to stay behind because he couldn't go... and his rash decision of forcing the both of them to go. The least it would do, he now thought, would be to give them time alone with each other, which slightly disgusted him... He had been friends with both of them and now he finds out they have a romantic interest in each other... That wouldn't change their friendship, he thought quickly, would it?

"Two of my friends wanted to stay behind, too," said Harry which strangely made Professor Trelawney's eyebrows raise as if that was an omen of his next mis-predicted death.

"Er -- Mr. Weasley and Miss Weasley -- how did they --?" asked Dumbledore uncertainly which Harry found slightly funny but he turned pink around the ears as he answered.

"I lent him them fourty galleons."

"So kind," said Dumbledore fondly which brightened the color around Harry's ears, "paying for them while not able to go yourself."

"I owe the Weasleys a lot -- but they have to pay back every cent of it," Harry added jokingly. "I thought you'd at least be in New York?" he asked Dumbledore.

The three students, who weren't exactly on speaking terms with the Headmaster, sat idly by. Filch as well as Professor Trelawney weren't very interested in speaking.

"I was there this morning to see the Hogwarts students into each of the five dormitory halls," said Dumbledore. "I believe they are Bagatelle, Jericho, Lodi, Nicolls and Sagtikos. Gryffindors have been split between Lodi and Bagatelle, Hufflepuffs are in Lodi and Jericho, Ravenclaws are in Nicolls and Lodi and for Slytherins, Sagtikos and Nicolls. Their newest one is Lodi Hall, which is very nice indeed. There's a heated pool on the top floor with a glass ceiling overlooking Torr Lounge and Taconic Triens. Ingenius how it is set up, with a Gate Center in each building allowing you to travel instantly to any other building -- though you aren't allowed in the Moonstone Complex or Bayonne Complex without a Graduate Charm."

In the brief introduction Dumbledore had given Harry, his head was already spinning, but he still didn't think sneaking out of England to cross the ocean into the United States was such a good idea. If it was Dumbledore's job to stop Harry from going, he wasn't starting off very well; back to his mind came the plot to find a way to Laurence Patrick Hayden's unseen.

Midway through Dumbledore's speech on the Camden Library and how it is the size of Hogwarts' Great Hall, entrance hall and library combined, Nearly Headless Nick broke in about something that had been bothering him.

"Now, it seems," he said gloomily, "the Headless Hunt visited that school. They took in quite a few decapitated ghosts there!" he groaned.

Harry had a sudden vision of the Headless Hunt writing a faked letter to Nearly Headless Nick just to upset him. Six years ago, when the Headless Hunt had come to Hogwarts, they hadn't taken so kindly to him. Then he also had a sudden idea. How far did Raides' magic extend? She couldn't... she wouldn't be able to...

"I wonder if Raides has any sort of magic to, well, make your decapitation complete?" said Harry with a half glance at Dumbledore.

Nick, whose face had been mimicking exactly how Harry had been feeling all day, quickly went into a wide, hopeful grin. Dumbledore fixed Harry with his own light blue stare as though not sure the idea was a very good one. Frankly, neither did Harry for a reason he couldn't put a finger on but felt that if he couldn't bright his own mood, he was, to put it simply, very bored and needed to entertain himself; he had been homeworked-out.

"What's the harm?" asked Nick.

"I suppose," said Dumbledore, his face screwed up in thought.

"I'll have to go get Raides because she's currently sitting up in my dormitory -- er -- deactivated, for lack of a better word," Harry told them all. "Come up after we finish, Nick, and we'll see what she says."

And so after they had finished eating, and Dumbledore was now talking about the combat lesson he had overseen with a sword use instructor, Nick followed Harry up to Gryffindor Tower, occasionally floating into him and sending a cold chill wherever he touched Harry.

Harry immediately grabbed hold of Raides after spotting her on his trunk and she sprang to life.

"Well hello there," she said, her mouth open in a toothy grin and then seeing the not-so-happy look on Harry's face, she frowned and said, "Okay, what dirty something do you want me to do."

"It's not dirty," said Harry. "I just wanted to know if you could, maybe, finish Nick's decapitation?"

Raides asked Harry to hold her up to Nick's partially severed neck and took a full three minutes of staring before coming to the conclusion of yes. And with the three Hogwarts students, Dumbledore, Filch and Professor Trelawney watching, Harry tried it by just thinking about it and hoping that would be enough.

A golden glitter, originating at the scarlet crystal, ran the length of the staff followed by a white glow, the glitter then collecting at the crystal. Both the glitter and glow shot off the crystal right at Nick's head which, when the light show had finished, had fallen off.

Nick didn't say anything, he just gave a strangled cheer and disappeared through the wall, his head in his arms. Harry smiled weakly while Dumbledore, Filch and Professor Trelawney were all goggling at the staff in his hands.

"What," groaned Raides irritably.

A letter signed by both Ron and Hermione had arrived the next morning during breakfast. Harry didn't think any owl would make the trip until Dumbledore told him Laurence Patrick Hayden's bewitches their cross-continent owls with a Haste Charm. It's the job of Graduate students, who are payed to do so, to manage such Charms. Other paid jobs include, Dumbledore mentioned, keeping the Fire Turrets working around Nightfall's Crescent or the school would be attacked by a horde of cave-dwelling beasts.

"They were able to drive out and kill many of the less vicious beasts but the Troglodytes remain persistent," said Dumbledore as if this were no bigger news than rats infesting a restaurant. "They had to dig deep underground with all kinds of spells to fit the school with enough space for Muggle sewer systems without them noticing there's a several-mile-large school just below," he sighed. "Graduate students in the Charms department have a tough time with all the Memory Charms needed to keep it a secret. I think they also employ a distinguished faculty member there, however."

Harry supposed it would be very hot in the school but there were probably big Charms to cool it all off. He finished eating as quick as he could because he had become sick of Dumbledore talking about the school; it just made him more angry that he wasn't allowed to go. Sitting on his four poster and glaring at the Explicatrix for a brief moment, he read the letter.

Dear Harry,  
Hermione here. I'm not entirely sure you want to hear this but here it goes anyway. This school is just really neat! You should see the library, there's an entire building devoted to it and it's huge! We got to watch a bunch of Graduate students in the Bayonne Complex have a sword fight and they used a bunch of really nice spells. One of them used a Fire Enchantment on his sword but you obviously couldn't see the flames on it. Of course, being trained with a sword isn't all the school teaches.

They have a program for people who want to become Summoners. We weren't able to see any Summoning magic during the quick demonstration yesterday; all of those students were in their classes. Many of their students go on to be excellent Aurors, though. Someone did mention a study in Dark Arts, Potions Grand Mastery and something about a degree in Divination. But enough of that, here's Ron.

We actually met the Divination teacher and they were keen on giving us a demonstration. Before they could, Professor Trelawney told us to move on then later she went back to Hogwarts all upset. Who knows, who really cares?

They gave us a presentation in Torr Lounge on, of all people, you. The theater is huge, it can fit the entire school in it, five thousand people. Professor Glass, head of the Foreign Research Department, said the point of the study, done by Dark Arts Graduate students, was to find out why you lived but, well, they still don't have a clue. They know all about Raides. Professor Idelle never shut up about how much she wanted to meet her until Dumbledore came along. The good thing is the majority of the students don't believe you killed anyone except for the ones in Sagtikos Hall, the one Draco is in. Nearly everyone in Lodi and Bagatelle wanted to meet you (they wouldn't leave Hermione and I alone until like two in the morning, badgering us with questions, I really wish you could have come). I reckon Lodi and Sagtikos are going to get into a huge fight over this. Someone from Jericho told me it's happened before and about a fourth of the students from Sagtikos got expelled. A bunch of parents were not pleased.

Speaking of which, while it sounds like a better school than Hogwarts, the Undergraduate program isn't all it sounds like it is. The Graduate students do learn more than us but you sort of have to expect that. I mean, I don't think the Ministry of Magic is going to allow sword fights at Hogwarts especially with the Slytherins and Gryffindors hating each other so much. There are only very few schools with Graduate programs, though. But anyway.

Wish you could be here,  
Ron and Hermione

Harry didn't know if that made him feel better or worse. He certainly liked hearing as much about Laurence Patrick Hayden's as possible, about the five dormitory halls, the huge library (that Hermione must be enjoying herself in, Harry thought), the entire building dedicated to being a lounge with a big theater inside of it... Though he didn't think five thousand people gaping at his forehead would be a very pleasant experience. Michelle Quirrel, while under a permanent Imperius, had told him the name Harry Potter wasn't known in the United States but, after a second of asking himself why not, he thought it was pretty dumb to believe her.

He suddenly wanted to know where Michelle was, if she had escaped Voldemort for good or if she had gotten killed. Harry hoped she hadn't even though he never really knew her very well... It didn't take him very long to remember her reaction to finding out about him. The letter Sirius had written to him said she was sick with worry.

Then, turning red, Harry suddenly found he didn't care that much anymore and was left with a hole in his stomach that would only go away if he was in New York. He had to get out, he just had to. Fudge telling him he couldn't go just wasn't fair at all. He hadn't done anything wrong!

All of a sudden Hogwarts looked boring and very uninteresting, almost painful to walk around in. There was only one possible way of making this work, he thought to himself as he put Ron and Hermione's letter into his bedside cabinet. Staring at the empty four-posters usually occupied by Ron, Seamus, Dean and Neville, he would have to try to, Raides in hand, Disapparate from Hogsmeade to Whitestone Tower.

But how could be possibly fool everyone into thinking he was at Hogwarts and not halfway across the planet in New York? As he went to sleep a few hours later, he hoped that his sleeping mind would work out the details for him because his brain was currently numb and dumbstruck.

Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, was a portly man. And an annoying one. Harry could never understand why he hadn't believed Harry that Voldemort had risen for the first time since his disappearance when Harry was a year old in his fourth year at Hogwarts. Then he remembered that Fudge had been reading -- and believing -- articles in the Daily Prophet written by Rita Skeeter.

That was something -- or rather, someone -- Harry had forgotten about. Rita was going to have a field day with Lucius Malfoy's death. Thankfully, there hadn't been an article in the Daily Prophet about either Dudley or Mr. Malfoy but he didn't want to kill himself over how long it would be until something did turn up.

But he didn't care, putting his glasses on his bedside cabinet and twisting and turning, trying to fall asleep. He wanted to get to New York.


	35. Animus Speculum

Chapter 35: ANIMUS SPECULUM 

Harry woke up the next day feeling unaccountably nervous about something, but then remembered what he wanted to do and the nervousness was easily explained. He was shivering but couldn't separate his nervousness and guilt from actually being cold. When he went down to breakfast with the three Hogwarts students (one of the girls formally introduced herself as Sarah Cyrilla), he tried to look innocent. His porridge wasn't as warming as usual.

After he finished eating, Harry went back up to his dormitory to spend a good hour with the Explicatrix, trying to figure out what it was that it was supposed to do. This time he tried yelling at it, rubbing it with his hands and attempt to crystal gaze with it. Nothing worked. Shaking his head at it, Harry turned to the lifeless staff sitting on his trunk. Raides sprang to life in his hand and immediately asked him to let her go so she could transform.

After he told her what he wanted to do --

"I really don't see how this is going to work, Harry," she said as if he was crazy, "I really don't. I mean, once you're found missing from Hogwarts, the next place they're going to search is Hayden's because you know damn well they aren't going to check with the Dursleys."

"I know," said Harry sheepishly, sitting heavily upon his bed, "but there just has to be a way."

"And if for reason you manage to find out how, if you take me to New York with you, how are you going to explain my absence? This is hopeless, Harry, as much as I want to go, too."

Harry kneaded his forehead with his knuckles in frustration. Deep down, he knew Raides was right but refused to believe her.

"Why can't you get your memory back!" he shouted furiously. "Someone must have put one seriously strong Memory Charm on you to stop you from remembering your 'magic so forbidden' but they also made you forget all your useful magic! There is a way to do this, there has to be..."

He quickly sat up from his bed as if there was something he just thought of doing but it was nothing more than to pace back and forth, thinking hard (but getting nowhere).

"Harry, you can't," said Raides in a matter-of-fact tone. "You go to New York, you won't be here. The minute someone comes looking for you and can't find you anywhere, you're busted."

"Then there has to be a way to trick everyone into thinking I'm here," said Harry as if there was nothing to it.

"How?" asked Raides blankly. "That would require constant Memory Charms to stop everyone from looking for you when they wanted to and to forget they could never find you. I don't think you want to Disapparate from here to there very often either because the farther you go, the harder it is and the harder it is, the greater chance of a splinch and we all know how fun that is," she finished grimly.

"You can do anything with magic," said Harry defiantly. "There's a spell out there to do this, I know there is. I wish Hermione was here," he said, gloomily thinking of how Hermione solved many of his problems, "she'd find it..."

"Yeah, well, she's several thousand miles away across an ocean and enjoying herself while spending time with Ron," Raides reminded Harry.

Raides moved out of the way as Harry, forgetting where he was standing, tried to sit on her; he fell onto the floor, scowling at her ("I'm not a couch").

"You could check the Restricted Section of the library," Raides said as Harry got up to sit upon his four-poster again. "Go tonight, use me to go invisible."

"Ha," said Harry victoriously, wasting no time and holding out his hand for Raides to jump into as the staff. "Why didn't I think of that? Forget later, we're going there now."

"Occare!" Harry shouted, pointing the crystal in Raides' mouth at himself -- and after making sure Raides and himself were both invisible, the two set off for the library, Harry paying no attention to the idea that Raides was invisible yet he could see her anyway.

Raides, not having proper hands, knocked many books off the shelves in an attempt to grab them with her front paws and tail. The two of them had been searching for a good ten minutes, both invisible, only able to see the other because they could both see invisible things ("Of course I can see invisible things," Raides had said when Harry asked if both of them being invisible would be a problem).

"If you knock down any more books, Mrs. Norris is going to go get Filch!" Harry hissed.

"You could always just possess her again," said Raides, grinning.

Harry shot her an extremely angry look and pulled Weird Wizarding Dilemmas off the shelf in front of him. He opened it up to look at the index and spotted a chapter devoted to being in two places at once. Heart thumping, Harry read the first paragraph.

Through the ages, time has become more demanding on people. You have to be stirring your potion as well as on your broom to an important meeting. Can't do both? This has led the way into a search for a way to be in two places at once to deal with such a problem.

And without even reading the rest of the page, Harry hurried over to Raides who was reading a toppled pile of books around the corner, her tail stuck up in the air.

"This is it," said Harry in a dramatic whisper, the book floating ominously down because his hand was invisible, still trying to ignore the fact that he shouldn't be able to see Raides.

"Found something, have you?" she asked, closing Wild Ways Around Your Wizarding Woes with a golden paw.

"I bet you anything the ancients had a spell for this," Harry went on fervently.

"Well go on, finish reading it."

Harry read, but there was no mention of any kind of spell, just that it had been looked into.

"A fat lot of help this was," said Harry angrily, waving his wand and watching all the books fly into their proper place.

"Haven't you learned anything from the Mark of Ancients and me?" Raides asked, shaking her head in shame.

"What?" barked Harry.

"Wave me around a bit while thinking. You're bound to come up with a spell."

Harry fixed her with a pale stare.

"I -- I'm still not comfortable with that..." he said cautiously.

"Do you want to go to New York or don't you?"

"No, I want to sit here until my eyeballs fall out," said Harry hotly. "Yes, of course I do!"

"Little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" asked Raides sarcastically.

"Don't know what you're talking about," Harry retorted casually.

"I'm trying to help."

"I see," Harry snapped.

"What are you snapping at me for?"

"I'm not --" Harry began angrily again, but then he stopped abruptly, fell heavily into the nearest chair and finished sheepishly with, "I am snapping out at you..."

"You be glad I don't walk out on my masters and that I'm to serve them until they die," said Raides, grinning.

"This is not the time to be cracking dumb jokes or mentioning me dying, Raides," Harry told her seriously.

"All right, all right... What do you want to do, then?"

"I want to find a way to make a copy of myself!"

Harry then held out his hand for Raides to jump into, waved her around stupidly and heard the words "Animus Speculum!" escape his mouth.

There was a flash of scarlet light, a shock from Raides that made Harry drop her ("Ouch," she said lazily), and before his eyes, out of thin air appeared a version of himself that was so much like the real thing the only thing reason he knew it wasn't was because it just appeared in front of him.

"That works," said Raides.

When Harry found his voice, he asked, "Why do you keep shocking me sometimes?"

Raides, the crystal in her mouth gone, replied, "Who knows. I was gone for ten thousand years. There's bound to be a surge of magic occassionally."

And then, his eyes finally believing he was staring at a mirror image of himself, "Is it safe to leave -- er -- me here?"

"Go on," said Harry's image which made both Raides and the real Harry's mouth drop. "I'm you. No one'll ever know."

Freaky wasn't the word for it, thought Harry. It looked exactly like him. It moved exactly like he did. It had his exact voice. It said everything in exactly the same way he would. It was wearing his clothes. It even scratched its head in confusion with its pointer finger then nervously flattened its bangs over the lightning-shaped scar on its forehead. The only difference between the real Harry and the image was that the image seemed to know what was going on.

"So -- so you're me," said the real Harry slowly. "Do you think the same way I do?" He stuck out a hand to touch the image's hand which was shivering (was it because he was cold or because he was scared?) in exactly the same fashion as he was.

"Does Professor Trelawney give that stupid look every time you look at her?" said the image.

"C'mon Raides," said the real Harry at once, "we're Disapparating to Whitewonder Tower."

"We're connected by Foresight!" called the image at Harry's retreating back.

It looked like Harry was in the clear. He had an exact copy of himself roaming Hogwarts and even he couldn't tell the difference. How would anyone ever find out? When Raides and Harry were up in Gryffindor Tower Raides said, "Hey, if you can't trust yourself, who can you trust?"

"Right. So, let's get this over with," said Harry nervously once they were in Hogsmeade so he could Disapparate as it no longer worked at Hogwarts. "I'm starting to have second thoughts. Deliquesco!" Harry shouted, Raides in hand.

There was a popping noise and as Harry looked down at himself to make sure he hadn't been splinched, he realized that he wasn't exactly in a building. He wasn't even in a friendly environment. All those pairs of red eyes looking back at him angrily was what made him drop the staff clutched for safety in his hand and Raides turn back into the great golden and scarlet lion.

"I didn't think we'd actually end up in the right spot," said Raides as Harry involuntarily recoiled in fear; there were a bunch more pairs of eyes poking themselves out.

The two of them had Disapparated near a cave, the ground beneath them a rusted metal color, the sky above them instead solid rock and the only light was provided by a weak, dancing flame set inside a huge glass plate, resting on a one foot tall stone stand.

As Harry saw the owner of one particularly cold set of eyes, he saw that it was a mountain troll, a large, twelve foot tall mountain troll carrying a particularly big club, an evil glint in its tiny eyes. But there wasn't just one of them. There were about thirty. And they were on all sides.

A loud roar behind Harry made him stop walking backwards and wheel around only to meet the eyes of creatures with large, greyish purple bodies, a humped back, two very long horns on their heads and walking on large, four-thumbed feet. He didn't need to listen to his instinct to know what those growls of hunger meant. There were about thirty of those, too.

"Raides," Harry choked, turning his head to the seven foot lion next to time that was looking like all her dreams had come true. Was she really capable of killing everything around them without at least Harry dying?

The trolls and the other creaures, he recognized as graphorns from Hagrid's classes were closing in but that wasn't going to be all their troubles. There was a manticore rearing its head which was that of a man. Its body resembled Raides' and it's tail was that of a scorpion. It was crooning softly which told Harry it had recently eaten something.

And to top it all off, the humongous silhouette of a gigantic leopard was coming slowly into view. Though it was far away, there was no mistaking the size of it; it was a nundu, the most dangerous beast known to wizard kind.

One of the graphorns lunged at Harry but he managed to get out of the way of its horns as it soared passed him. He stepped on an imp, which made a cracking noise and he knew he had broken its bones as he stampeded over it.

"RAIDES!" screamed Harry, dodging a rock thrown by another imp, shaking its fist angrily at him.

He took refuge by what he could only see as being a Fire Turret, except that the turret wasn't firing. One arm covering his head, the other clutching the Order of Merlin plaque he was crouched low to the ground. For a good fifteen minutes Harry stayed there, listening to gross squishy noises, the cracking of bones, Raides' unmistakable roars, cries of pain and cries of death, dreading the moment when Raides died. Except it didn't come.

More times than one he felt something hit his back or would hear the splatter of what, when it first happened, he thought was water but turned out to be blood. One time a graphorn head rolled his way, severed off its body. As hard as Raides tried, when a troll went flying over Harry, the fact that its stomach was ripped open, spraying blood all over the place, showering the ground as it flew past and, consequently, Harry, couldn't be helped.

At one point, he heard lots of crunching.

"You can look, now," said Raides.

Harry, shaking, slowly stood up and saw a large pile of bones next to Raides. For a while he couldn't believe it, that Raides had actually killed everything including the nundu and manticore, two of the most dangerous creatures alive. But when he surveyed the battlegrounds, there was a lot of skin strips, pieces of horn, hair and blood. Harry himself looked like he had done some killing of his own with his bare hands. He stood there until what he saw in front of him sank into his slightly numb brain.

And when he could do something more than stare, he waved his wand at himself, cleaning his clothing and Raides.

Still invisible, Harry said, "We should find Whitewonder Tower so we can get inside but we ought to clean up that -- er -- pile of..."

With a wave of his wand, the entire pile of bones ignited on fire and within a few seconds, had burned to cinders. When the smoke had cleared and all that was left was a single bone for Raides to chew on, she pointed her golden tail at the huge lettering behind them that said Whitewonder Tower.

"You weren't that off-course, considering..." Raides commented thoughtfully.

Trotting happily along Harry's side and clenching her jaws tightly on her bone, Raides followed him into the strikingly white building made entirely out of marble. Now that he had a chance to look around, he saw that the school was set inside what looked like a large cave dug out of the ground. The ceiling made out of rock rose hundreds of feet above them and though they were underground, it almost felt like being outside. There was no sunlight but all along the towering ceiling were small torches. Above the grand entrance of the tower that rose almost touching the rocky ceiling, there were dancing blue-white flames forming the words Paladin Laurence Patrick Hayden's Manhattan School of Wizardry.


	36. Laurence Patrick Hayden

Chapter 36: LAURENCE PATRICK HAYDEN

If he hadn't suddenly felt guilty for sneaking out of England to visit this place, Harry would have been amazed at the ceiling that rose as high as the underground cave itself and the crystal statue hanging in midair of a wizard with the name Laurence Patrick Hayden on its feet. Floating a hundred feet above him were small balls of flame lighting up the entrance.

"Ron and Hermione said they were in Lodi Hall," said Harry, spinning around on the marble floor as if a sign was going to tell him exactly where they were.

"Why do you want to find them and why don't you just use Foresight --" Raides suggested casually.

"No," Harry cut her off sharply. "Dumbledore said all the dormitories are connected to this building," he went on, trying to reason his way around.

"And aren't they going to be horrified you snuck out of England? I mean..."

Harry didn't think Hermione would tell anyone what he did but thought she would have a strong urge to even though she'd never do it. As for Ron, Harry had a feeling he would see things his way. But he didn't respond to Raides, who was anxiously awaiting an answer.

"You might want to get yourself a Hand of Glory," Raides told Harry.

"A hand of what?"

"Stick a candle in it and only you can see its light."

Harry stared.

"You're not supposed to remember anything."

Raides shrugged.

"It was in one of those books I was reading. You're going to need it if you plan to sneak around here at night. You don't want anyone -- or anything -- seeing a floating lantern or wand with its tip lit. Besides, wand light is horrible and lanterns burn out. You can just conjure a new candle."

"Fine, but not until I've found them."

Hopelessly spinning around some more, Harry noticed that, high above him, like all of the several corridors leading out of Whitewonder Tower, one of the signs read Torr Lounge. Feeling dumb, Harry walked along the corridor and was now standing in a circular room that looked like a mere extension of Whitewonder Tower with its pearly white marble floor and walls. Here there were six more corridors leading out, five of them reading Lodi, Bagatelle, Jericho, Nicolls and Sagtikos. He walked along the corridor with the name Lodi, written in black opals, above it.

The sides of the corridor were one big window, with its top and bottom still made of marble and he could see how the dormitories were arranged in a pentagon around Torr Lounge. There were only really five corridors, the last one being just a staircase going up.

At the end of the corridor leading into Lodi Hall was a golden carpet (he was now in a building with a ceiling that wasn't towering so high above him that his footsteps echoed darkly) with floating torches on either side of the corridor's exit and a magnificent chandelier above him holding more torches. The walls were of a dark blue. On one side of the room he was now in was a burning fireplace beneath an ornamental carving -- seemingly made out of ice except that it was the same golden color of the carpet beneath him -- of an equally magnificent ten foot long sword. It was extremely cold to the touch.

There were round tables and high-backed armchairs spread around the room and Harry was somewhat reminded of the Gryffindor common room. It was about as big as the entire house the Dursleys owned which was already bigger than his common room back in Hogwarts. Above a painting of simply the word Lodi done up all fancy, was a postboard with notices posted on it. He read one of them.

All final year ungraduate students in Halls Lodi and Bagatelle report to the Bayonne Complex Saturday to speak to a graduate advisor should you choose to continue your magical education. No pun intended.

Harry noted that this school was all about bigness. Even the glassless window high above him carved out of the wall most likely for owls to soar in and out of was big. He also had to wonder why it wasn't stiflingly hot or cold but then he read another note on the postboard.

All interested graduate students report to Professor Gale to learn how to care for your House's Owl Hole Temperature Charm.

"Harry," said Raides, grinning broadly, who's head was stuck between Harry's legs, reading another note, "read this one."

All Houses please note: No, for the last stupid time. Harry Potter will not be arriving.

Harry proceeded to tear that note off the postboard and toss it into the fire where -- it didn't burn but instead flew right out of the fire and right back to where it was while another new note accompanied it. This note flew right into his hand and read, "Please do note toss notices into the fire, thank you." It disintegrated as soon as he finished reading it.

Just then, a humongous bird resembling Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, though he knew it wasn't Fawkes by the the differently arranged plumage, flew into the common room from the House Owl Hole high above him. It landed on a perch at the top of the room and went right to sleep, its golden and scarlet tail rising and sinking slowly. He noticed that there were many birds of all kinds up there, all sitting on perches and even spotted Ron's owl, Pigwigdeon stuck between an eagle owl and what was unmistakably a dodo bird, a bird that he knew couldn't fly.

"Enough sightseeing," Harry said soundlessly to himself as a barn glared an amber eye at him.

"Where is everyone, anyway?" Raides asked. "Shouldn't we have run into someone by now? It all seems empty."

Harry pointed to another note which said everyone was currently in Torr Lounge, watching another presentation. He tried to walk along another corridor leading out of the common room (there several aside from the one he walked in from) but found that he couldn't. Every time he tried, he found that his legs were walking him backwards. Raides asked why he was dancing and Harry told her to try...

"Dumbledore say something about this?" she asked after trying to jump into the deep blue-carpeted corridor; she then had an uncontrollable urge to walk back and say, "How dare me," slapping herself with her tail, "only bats, owl, cats, toads, rats or snakes allowed!" She gave up, walking back to Harry who had taken a seat on one of the armchairs, a really squashy black one. "Someone's trying to be funny..." There was a disappointed and sulky twinkle in her eyes. "And I still say they're going to be horrified. What are you going --"

"I'm not staying at Hogwarts, Raides!" Harry snapped, clearly vexed, angrily banging his fists on the armchair and standing up. "They have no right to stop me coming here! I didn't kill anyone!" he squeaked indignantly.

"Didn't you do something like this before when you couldn't go to Hogsmeade because you magically inflated your aunt, ran away from home and didn't get your form signed?" Raides asked calmly and Harry could tell she was waiting to get to a point like she always was when she was talking in a suspicious tone like that.

"But that was different!" Harry lied desperately, knowing she would see through it.

"No it wasn't," said Raides firmly and dismissively, "and besides, the only reason you didn't get in trouble for going to Hogsmeade illegally was because you are 'famous Harry Potter,' wasn't it?" She was eyeing Harry like an angry mother.

"I hate your memory," said Harry bitterly.

"I just have your best interests in mind," Raides assured him, dropping her gaze and instead getting lost in the dazzling fire.

Harry sank into his armchair, keeping quiet. She did have his bests interests in mind, he thought to himself and since he was her master, if something happened to him, she would have to either change masters or... get locked in that book for another ten thousand years. Or far worse, serve Lord Voldemort. As much as he liked her less and less, he would have to stick her out...

"So d'you wanna go back to Torr Lounge then?" Raides suggested -- but she didn't have to.

At that moment, Harry heard Hermione's voice sounding irritated.

"Yes, but, honestly... Harry would never use it like Lord Voldemort has," came her voice ("Don't say the name!" hissed someone he didn't recognize).

"Y'know the story about that chamber Slytherin built in our school, right?" said Ron's voice.

"Of course," said a second voice Harry didn't recognize, "but... no one... in history --"

"Not Harry," said Hermione and Harry, for a split second thought they were talking about Harry being able to possess people.

But he took comfort -- or at least dearly hoped -- that she wouldn't spill that... ?

Harry saw Hermione's hand first which was carrying a small white pamphlet with the title Parseltongues Permeating Our Past and was horrified when he saw the owner of the second voice he didn't recognize.

"So he's really not a Dark wizard?" asked Jeff Uder curiously.

Hermione stepped dead, disgusted Jeff would say something like that and Ron bumped into her.

"Who told you that?" she asked Jeff crossly.

Harry glanced at Raides; she, too, was listening intently.

Jeff looked confused and he stopped walking as well.

"N-no one," he spluttered, "th-that's what everyone here thinks."

Was that why the United States Fire Quidditch team had been so mean? They thought he was a Dark wizard? On a side note, Harry noticed that Jeff looked much more likeable when his clothing didn't resemble Swiss cheese.

"Oh give me a break," said Hermione irritably, shaking her head and starting to walk again.

Raides moved out of the way to avoid being trampled on by Neville Longbottom. Jeff answered Harry's question.

"Really? Well, that's why we were all so horrible to England's team. Our team manager suggested it. I disagreed but, La Grange... By the way, I think you should know she's hated by most everyone in every Hall except Sagtikos and a few in Nicolls -- and Samuel and Lara are on the team. Mike Jacobs is in Jericho, Aidan is in Lodi with me and" -- he went slightly red -- "Zoe is in Bagatelle."

"Right," said Ron in an off-hand voice. "So, what are we doing now?"

Jeff took a seat on an armchair by the postboard. He was staring right through Harry at the fire while Raides eyed him suspiciously.

"Well, it's only just lunchtime and I have to go outside to check up on the Fire Turrets with someone, he's already outside now --"

With one glance at Raides, Harry entered a panic. Could they have possibly have done something at the Fire Turret that would tip someone off? He hoped not, but at that precise moment, someone whose face was very white came running into the common room. He was looking paler than Malfoy. Harry also noticed that most of the students were dressed more like Muggles than wizards. A few students wore cloaks but many were dressed in jeans.

"Jeff," he said, his voice shaking slightly, "you have got to come and see this."

He grabbed Jeff by the arm and ran flat out towards Whitewonder Tower.

"Just great," Harry muttered soundlessly to himself. He would have taken a seat on an armchair but someone would notice so he stayed standing, moving around so no one would walk into him.

"Well, what d'you suppose we do, Ron?" Hermione asked, sitting down on an armchair which was incidentally right next to Harry while Ron sat on one that was next to Raides.

"Lunch isn't for another hour or so," Ron said thoughtfully, "and seeing as how we still don't know our way around this place, we ought to just go upstairs. Maybe send Harry another letter?"

Hermione laughed shortly. "I'm not too sure he'll be interested in hearing how this entire school thinks he's a Dark wizard and that we saw another presentation about him being able to speak Parseltongue and what it means." She bent closer to Ron and Harry leaned closer, too, to listen. "I'd almost like to see what they'd say if they knew he could possess people."

Harry disagreed; he didn't want to know nor did he ever want to think about it.

"Hermione that's insane," said Ron as a few of the people got curious as to why they were talking in hushed voices. Ron leaned back in his chair and spoke normally again. "I wish he was here, though. There's a few graduate students right now in the Bayonne Complex dueling. They're going for their Paladin degrees. I know he'd just love to see it." He leaned in closer again. "What would the harm have been if, you know, Harry --?"

"Lots of harm," Hermione said through gritted teeth, barely moving her lips.

Ron leaned back again as if he had said too much and Hermione was giving him a pair of McGonagall eyes, her lips as thin as the pamphlet in her hand.

"Let's go back upstairs," she said suddenly without the slightest change of expression. Then she dropped her gaze and added, "I want to read that book I took out of the library."

Ron tutted loudly, rising after Hermione and said, shaking his head deeply, "Honestly, Hermione, reading? I think you've read the entire library at Hogwarts but this one is much bigger, you'll have a much harder time. And besides, you're supposed to be on Christmas vacation!"

Harry let out a snigger that was barely audible. He saw Ron's head whip in his direction but then, Ron thinking it was his imagination, continued after Hermione. It was a very close call... That was the corridor Harry and Raides couldn't pass and then he understood; that one most likely led to the dormitories. He really wanted to see them after all he had heard about how superb they were but, remember Ron mentioning the Graduate students in the Bayonne Complex, gave Raides a meaningful nod and set off again.

They crossed Torr Lounge and entered Whitewonder Tower. None of the corridors read Bayonne Complex and he had absolutely no idea where he was going. The only corridors leading out read Taconic Intersect, Greenhouse Complex and Council's Tower. Harry looked at Raides who looked back, shrugged and pointed her scarlet tail at the corridor that lead to the Taconic Intersect.

This was lucky, because a sign in the middle of the small pearly-white marble tower, rising just as high as Whitewonder Tower had a sign in it that said if they went west through the next building then north at the split, they'd end up at the Bayonne Complex.

The fight between two Graduates, one from Jericho the other from Bagatelle, wasn't very fascinating. Harry thought he'd had a much more interesting swordfight when he had gone up against that basilisk. It culminated when one student found a five foot sword sticking out of his chest and his robes were shining a deep crimson.

But the next second, a phoenix shot off a nearby perch and closed his wound while a nearby teacher gave the other student a detention which involved using his broom, but not for flying. He had gone to sweep the Quidditch field which rested on the top floor of Torr Lounge.

It was later that night after Harry had snuck some food out of the Lodi dining hall when Ron and Hermione were sitting alone in the Lodi common room. They were talking to each other about how Whitewonder Tower, Torr Lounge and the Taconic Intersect could have possibly been built.

"Ron, all of them rise up about seven thousand feet," Hermione was saying while giving Ron a madly superior look.

She had settled herself in an armchair after the last student had gone up to bed. Dennis Creevey had been talking to a first year animatedly about some plants they'd seen in the Greenhouse Complex, more specifically one with an eye about the size of his entire head. Hermione was holding a book named Hayden's, A History. Harry recalled a similar book Hermione had been reading at Hogwarts which was called Hogwarts, A History.

"Some of the skyscrapers in New York only rise about three thousand feet. These are twice as tall!" she said, hardly daring to believe it. Harry saw her mouth, slowly, form the words seven thousand four hundred and eighty-two as if the number in the book was incorrect.

"Hermione," said Ron in a droning sort of voice, like Hermione was being stupid, "my house is held up by magic. I doubt they wouldn't have thought of that. I highly doubt any Muggle building is going to be able to go up seven thousand feet and not fall down. It would weigh too much!" he added as if the idea were ludicrous.

There was a silence in which Ron stared at some space to the left of Hermione and Hermione stared through Harry. Should he go for it now? Raides was curled up by the fire. They hadn't made themselves visible so far. For some reason, Harry thought just speaking would cause a right panic. But what choice did he have? Would he just walk in through the corridor, completely visible -- and if someone saw him, get caught and be sent to Azkaban?

With one desperate look at the Order of Merlin plaque hanging from his neck, and truly hoping they wouldn't de-friend him --

"Ron, Hermione," whispered Harry.

Ron went rigid. Hermione dropped the book.

"Did you hear something?" said Ron.

"No," said Hermione stiffly.

"You did hear something," Harry whispered again.

"This is going to be great," said Raides, making no effort to stifle the note of amusement in her voice.

Hermione's head did several one-eighties while she got to her feet and spun her body around several times, looking for Harry.

"Where are you?" she hissed through the crackle of the fire.

"I'm invisible," Harry told her.

"How could you?" she hissed again. "How dare you! What if someone finds you? How? Won't someone notice you're not at Hogwarts?"

"Er -- I've got that covered --"

Hermione opened her mouth in horror but then Ron voiced what Harry had been hoping he would say.

"Oh come off it, Hermione," he said, standing up and not bothering to look around for Harry, though Hermione, who was at least seated by now, was still swiveling her head as though Harry was going to pop out of thin air.

"Come off it?" said Hermione fiercely. "He illegally snuck out of Hogwarts -- out of England! -- and he's -- Harry -- here! What's anyone going to say when they've found out?"

"Look," said Ron in a matter-of-fact tone, "I'm not saying people should regularly smuggle themselves out of a country --"

"You're making me feel bad, Ron," said Harry, who didn't like Ron's use of the word "smuggle."

"-- just to go someplace where they -- but I mean, come on, can't you see it Harry's --"

"No," said Hermione sharply, "I can't! How did you do it, anyway?" she asked Harry, her head still looking around as she picked up her book.

"A spell called Animus Speculum," Harry informed her. "It makes a living, breathing copy of yourself, exactly like you are."

Ron looked somewhat impressed but Hermione didn't.

"Please tell me you didn't," she said, her voice shaking so much that Harry's heart dropped with a thud as loud as the one Hermione's book made again.

"How do you know --" Harry began but Hermione cut him off before he had a chance to finish.

"I read about a bunch of spells from the ancients over the summer, curious to see if I could find out how the Mark of Ancients can basically cast spells for you." Harry had a sudden urge to ask Hermione why she had to be an insuferable know it all but resisted the temptation, though with great difficulty. "Animus Speculum was banned a long, long time ago, Harry, because it was so easily abused. It was decided that anyone caught using it when it was banned was immediately sentenced to death. They wanted the spell forgotten and all books with it destroyed! It is forbidden magic and I'm very sure it's along the lines of how possibly dangerous that magic Raides is capable of! How did you find it?"

Harry blinked.

"I didn't find it," he said hotly but then he felt sweat breaking out over his forehead and his tone became much less angry and a lot more fearful, "I held out Raides, thought about what I wanted and the words for it just -- just came out of my mouth."

"He's here, Hermione," Ron interrupted quickly. "What's the point?"

"What's the point?" Hermione repeated squeakily. "What's the point? Harry's going to be sentenced to death, Ron -- death! -- once someone finds out what he's done!"

Harry felt like disappearing back on Privet Drive again, locked up in his bedroom on the second floor with nothing but Hedwig and no spellbooks, no wand, no robes -- but remembered it was all pointless because, well, he didn't want to remember why.

He tried to come to his senses. He didn't want to go back to Hogwarts while the entire school, save three students, were across the planet but he didn't want to die, either... !

"H-how's anyone going to find out?" he asked cautiously. Ron, looking hopeful, turned to Hermione.

"Can anyone find out?" Ron asked. "I mean, if it's an exact copy..."

"And we're connected by Foresight," said Harry hastily. "If anything goes wrong, and, well, he does everything exactly like I do."

"That would be because he -- IS you," said Hermione reprovingly though she was slightly less angry and seemed to be casting her mind around for ways to catch the spell in action.

Even if she highly disapproved of Harry smuggling himself out of Hogwarts -- as Ron so unkindly put it -- the look on Ron's face of utter pity which, for once, Harry didn't mind, seemed to hit a soft spot in her.

"It takes a near-perfectly trained wizard," said Hermione after a terrible silence, taking a deep breath in a I'm-trying-to-calm-myself-down-but-having-a-hard-time-of-it sort of way. "Not even Dumbledore can detect it. There's a way to tell if something is enchanted or not and, while your clone is enchanted, the real you isn't. How could you, Harry!" ended Hermione on a shriek, standing up and looking downright furious again.

Harry pretended like he wasn't in the room, letting Ron and Hermione duke it out.

"Hermione, it's not going to do him any good to sit in Hogwarts. Can't you see it his way?" Ron asked again.

"No, Ron, I can't," Hermione said again, more seriously than last time. "What's he going to do while he's here? We can't get him a Lodi Charm, they're regulated by the Dormitory Hall staff and somehow I don't think they're going to agree to it even IF this entire school wants to meet him!" she hissed.

The problem was what Raides had been telling Harry, that being they would be slightly horrified. Harry himself had to think long and hard about this one. While Ron and Hermione continued arguing, Harry disappeared in the middle of it, thinking they wouldn't miss him anyway. It looked like he had two options and neither were very appealing: stay at Hogwarts and be miserable while everyone was in New York, or stay in New York and be miserable because he couldn't do much of anything.

Harry, wandering somewhere around the Camden Library on the one hundred and thirty-third floor, decided on option number two. It was Christmas, after all, and he didn't expect much in the way of presents anyway. And besides, if he got anything interesting, he would have wanted to tell his clone, so his clone would want to tell him, right?

Harry had wandered around the entire school and by dinner, was dead on his feet and really hungry. He had managed to follow Crabbe and Goyle from the upper floors of the Moonstone Complex all the way to the Sagtikos Dining Hall. The rest was Raides' idea.

If they made the food invisible, they could see it, but no one else could, which was perfect. Stealing some pudding, a goblet of pumpkin juice and a huge steak off a table no one was sitting at and hoping no one noticed it disappearing, he and Raides went to the upper floors of Torr Lounge to the main dining hall which was devoid of anyone except what were probably some teachers. Among them was Dumbledore and Harry went as white as his plate when he noticed this. But Dumbledore, who Harry knew could see right through invisibility cloaks, seemed to not notice him.

"He can't see through this, can he?" a worried Harry asked a very calm Raides, referring to the Invisibility Charm that he had still not yet removed.

"Doesn't look like it, now, does it? You might have noticed that some spells act differently when you cast them with me, you know," Raides reminded him.

"What d'you suppose we do later? I mean, we have the entire Christmas vacation to spend here..."

"Go spy on night classes? Better yet, where are we going to sleep? I daresay you don't want to sleep under the stars -- er -- rocks."

"Go back to Hogwarts? What if I get splinched, though... Halfway across the planet, that's pretty far even for you."

"Could always just possess Crabbe and --"

"No," said Harry flatly.

"But, they --"

"No."

There was a disappointed droop to Raides' tail.

Instead of using plates, Harry decided on just making their dinner float. The two of them ate in silence and when they were finished -- or rather when Harry had finished eating and Raides wanted more -- he gave his leftovers to her. With one last worried glance at Dumbledore, Harry, not knowing where to go or what to do, decided on following Raides. Not knowing herself where to go, she wandered back to the Lodi common room where Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Craig, Jeff and Parvati Patil were all talking.

"Yeah," Jeff was saying, "Lodi Hall is the biggest of all five of them. Rises up just over the size of Whitewonder Tower, about seven thousand seven hundred and two feet. All of the dormitory halls have their own dining hall but you already know that. They also all have a guest wing, built just a few years ago. You're allowed into it if you hold onto the hands -- or shoulders, whatever -- of two people who've got that Hall's Charm but you have to be holding on until you reach it."

Harry noticed Ron's head casually swiveling around as if they were going to find him there but noticed that Hermione did no such thing, rather she was giving Ron a subtle cold look as if she didn't want him to do it for Harry.

"It's a lot bigger than the next tallest one, Bagatelle, by almost two thousand feet," Jeff continued while Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Parvati were listening very attentatively. "It touches the sky of Nightfall's Crescent. Don't know why it's so big, though. It was only built like two hundred years ago. Well, I guess... The school is really old, about four hundred years."

Hermione and Parvati snorted.

"Hogwarts is over one thousand," Hermione told Jeff haughtily, a superior sort of look on her face.

Harry suspected Jeff to take this as an insult but he did no such thing. Instead, he made Hermione jump into the story of how Hogwarts was founded. Hermione, as expected, coughed up Hogwarts, A History and Harry left her to it after about an hour. He went with Raides and took to wandering the corridors again.

After an hour's worth of wandering -- and making himself hover a foot above the ground because his feet hurt -- Harry suddenly saw all the torches for as far as he could see go out. A voice echoed magically through the corridors.

"After hours!" it said. "All students return to your dormitory hall. Lights out at one A.M.! New students -- and those of you forget -- the word is 'Lumos!'"

"Can't see a damn thing," said Raides, pointing out the obvious. "Make a fireball with your bracelet or something. Or conjure that big dragon made of light."

"So anyone can come by and find out someone's sneaking around invisible?" Harry snapped. "And I'm not using my wand to do it, either. As dim as it is, who knows what they have sneaking around here."

"Do this sort of thing a lot, don't you? You have a good mind for not getting caught," said Raides, grinning.

This made Harry feel uncomfortable again but he didn't say anything. He was going to have to either Disapparate to Knockturn Alley and buy a Hand of Glory or use some other source of light and risk getting caught. Between a splinch and Azkaban, he'd take a splinch; he'd have to take his chances at Disapparating again. But what was he so worried about? If Raides couldn't Disapparate that far, who -- or what -- could?

To his great surprise, upon entering Lodi Hall, Ron and Hermione were sitting, alone. He didn't want to ask them to let him into the Lodi Guest Room, expecting Hermione to flat out refuse, citing that he shouldn't be there to begin with. When he began to tell them he was going back to Hogwarts to spend the night, Hermione cut in.

"We've been talking," she said, "and we've come to our own decision."

Puzzled, Harry stayed silent.

"Hermione still hates the idea," said Ron, grinning at her in his squashy armchair, "but I talked her into it. For a long time after we realized you left, she --"

"She wanted you to go -- straight -- back -- to Hogwarts," said Hermione in a would-be sharp tone except it was a bad impression of her own self. "I still don't like it, mind you," she said her eyes darting around the room for a sign of Harry, "but I've come to accept it, however grudgingly."

"That and she can see that Fudge had no right in stopping you from coming here --"

"That still doesn't make it right, Ron," Hermione snapped, staring coldly at him. "If he's not allowed to be here, he's not allowed to be here and he shouldn't."

"Are you two finished yet?" said Harry, shaking his head and wishing he could let them see without risking getting caught. "I'm quite tired..."

"We're gonna let you into the Lodi Guest Hall," said Ron. "We've been to see it. These dormitories are sure bigger than the ones at Hogwarts but, well, you'll see for yourself."

And, grabbing onto Ron's left hand and Hermione's right while Raides wrapped her tail around Hermione's left and Ron grabbed onto her right ear, the party of four looking like bad entrants in a ten-legged race awkwardly walked across the deep-blue carpeted corridor. At the end was a Gate which, by some method Harry didn't know, brought them to the upper floors instantly. The second floor, Harry knew, was the dining hall; Crabbe and Goyle had said that the second floor of every Hall was for eating but you could get to the dining hall from another corridor, one that didn't make you walk back. But he still couldn't get to the upper floors of Sagtikos Hall.

They had risen up many, many more feet than Harry was comfortable with to reach the really large Lodi Guest Hall. White sparkles formed into words floated ten feet above him telling him this was it. In fact, all the Lodi Guest Hall was was the upper five floors of Lodi Hall, two hundred and twenty to two hundred twenty-five.

There was a sign telling him that if he went below the two hundred and twentieth floor, he'd find himself taking the Gate back down to the common room.

"It works by thought," Hermione explained. "Just think of where you want to go and the Gate will put you on that floor when you walk into it. Even Neville doesn't have any trouble. And these are exactly like the other floors so we don't have anything in our room you don't have up here."

"Except if you count the fact that you're probably more likely to get a nosebleed," said Ron. "But they have a Charm for that, too."

"What don't they have a Charm for?" Harry asked.

"I'm not sure, exactly," Hermione told him, "I've been asking."

"I'm sure," said Harry in an off-hand voice. "Look," he went on gratefully, and then he paused before finishing lamely with just "thanks."

"Don't mention it," said Hermione. "I'd tell you what to do if you need anything but if you go below the two hundred and twentieth floor... You won't need to, though. Well, good night." She made a motion with her hand as if to wave but didn't know where Harry was since after he let go of her hand and gave up.

Holding hands, she and Ron and left.

Harry took a minute to look around him and was in awe. Raides was drooling on the deep-blue carpet.

The room was circular, reminding him of his dormitory at Hogwarts but that's where the similarities stopped. There was a round wooden something running down the center of the room, from ceiling to floor, where there was a sky light above each bed, all six of them. It would have been fascinating, except all he could see was a few feet before his eyes met the rocky ceiling of the underground. The beds were four-posters, very similar to the ones at Hogwarts except that their hangings were of a deep blue and the sheets a deep gold.

The walls of the room were made of a homey rosewood and the wooden thing in the center, about three feet wide, had a black postboard wrapped around it with no notes on it. A fire blazed at the bottom of this thing in a very strange looking circular fireplace, if it could be called that.

There were two bathrooms, Harry saw (which was a nice departure from having to walk far to get to one at Hogwarts), one directly opposite the other. Each bed had two night tables, one on either side and there would have been room to fit his clothing in a dresser, one floating eerily above each bed.

He would have gone to look inside one of them but his eyes met a part of the floor that circled the entire room, letting him see down, all seven thousand feet and felt his heart stop. There was nothing scary, it was just that he didn't want to have such a reminder that he was so high up.

For a moment, he decided on how he should sleep. If he was to just sleep normally, someone would notice a great big lump lying in one of the beds and that was certain to raise questions. But then he had to ask, why was he worried about that? It wasn't as if anyone at Hogwarts ever invaded the dormitories to make announcements and the house-elves, if there were any here, always came when the students were in classes and there was no one -- or at least there wasn't supposed to be anyone -- in here, so they wouldn't even need to.

And so dropping the thought of having to float in midair, he took a deep breath and put his Order of Merlin necklace and Phoenix Bracelet on the nearest bedside table then lifted his glasses up to rub his heavy eyes. Looking around for Raides, Harry saw that she had already hoisted herself up on the one next to him and was looking ready for a good night's sleep.

The deep-blue sheets raised into the air as Harry's invisible hand moved them so he could get in. Lying there, his eyes wandering around the absolutely-huge-for-just-six-beds circular room, he felt slightly guilty. He had snuck out of Hogwarts to be in, not just a different part of England, but on a completely different continent. But a little voice in the back of his head, like it kept doing, yelled that Fudge had no right to keep Harry from coming here! Didn't he?

"Raides," Harry called through the darkness and a soft growl told him Raides was listening, "can you see it Fudge's way?"

"You're not going to stop thinking about that until someone gives you their opinion, are you?" she said in a monotone, slightly annoyed voice.

"No," said Harry, "not really."

"I don't think you can blame him," she said truthfully. "It does look pretty suspicious --"

"Do they really think I meant to kill anyone?" Harry interrupted desperately.

"Did you?"

"Oh shut up," said Harry, scowling and throwing the covers over himself.

"Everyone knows you hate both Dudley and Lucius. It just looked real bad. You need Sirius or someone to die so they can't pin it on you," she said and Harry was horrified, as usual, to see that she was smiling.

"How can you say that?"

"Well it would help, wouldn't it?"

Harry's answer came in a stammer of rage.

"Yes, but -- still, I don't -- can't possibly -- just don't say that," he said when he could stop talking in fragments.

"But still, great way you found out to get us in here without anyone noticing. Couldn't have found something better myself."

Harry was going to reply but the last bit made him stay silent. There she went again, making him feel guilty; she certainly had a knack for doing that, Harry thought.

Raides seemed to be waiting for him to say something because after a moment's pause, she said, "Harry? Still awake?"

And still, Harry stayed silent. He took off his glasses and put them on the other night table while his stomach gave a guilty squirm. Should he have? He didn't know what to think anymore and it was perhaps all this uncertainty that gave him that weird dream.

Harry was trying to watch television in the Dursley living room but he found that he couldn't because someone was muttering non-stop very fast in his ear.

"Pain is everywhere, it surrounds us as a false fantasy of friends and jokes but slowly draws us in further and further towards what we thought were our friends but turn out to be what we hate and it can also smudge our thoughts, shatter our reason and tear apart those dreams that we were hoping for but you can't let it get to you because it's this that it wants, it wants you to stop trying, to just give up, to just simply go and die and you can't do that because you're stronger than that, you have to try and if you don't, the pain will have succeeded and it's then that you really have died, died on the inside and it will spread, possibly to your friends who will hopelessly watch you lie there, twitching until you're dead." 


	37. The Hand of Glory

Chapter 37: THE HAND OF GLORY

Harry woke up the next morning with Ron and Hermione talking very quietly, so quiet he was sure it wasn't them that had woken him up and that he really had awoken on his own. It was Ron that spoke first when he saw Harry's covers eerily move and then a depression form as if someone was sitting upright on the edge.

"Can't you show yourself? No one ever comes up here."

"How did you get here anyway?" asked Hermione.

"Disapparated," said Harry simply.

"All the way?" squeaked Hermione as if it was impossible. "In one shot?"

"That staff is amazing," said Ron, drooling slightly.

"Tell me about it," said Harry dryly. "Look," he went on in a business-like voice, "I'm going back to Hogwarts to buy stuff."

"What stuff can you possibly need with a staff like Raides?" Ron asked, still drooling slightly.

"Oh, stop it," said Raides in a flattered tone, "you're making me turn -- er -- red."

"Supplies," said Harry shortly.

"Before you go, I should tell you that the parents of anyone who wants to come can come," said Hermione. "They said at breakfast today that the entrance fee was just a bit too high, they realized, and they can fit about two times the amount of people anyway. So both Ron's and my parents are gonna be here by this afternoon. Just wanted to let you know."

"Okay, I'll be back later."

"Oh and when you get back, today all the Gryffindors get to visit the Bayonne Complex and have fake combats of our own. They're splitting us up by year in the combat rooms. The trainer, Professor Hayden -- but not the original one, mind you, he's long dead -- was going on about how he wanted to know how you could have possibly killed the basilisk. And you ought to eat something before you go, I left some toast downstairs in the common room, everyone's in the Torr Lounge auditorium listening to Professor Hayden give a small speech on the values of learning to fight with a sword. Honestly..."

Harry had a sudden vision of himself fighting ten Graduates with a sword and beating them all.

"I suppose you could take it off if we were alone, but..." Hermione said.

"Why not?" said Raides, noticing everyone staring at her as soon as she finished speaking. "If you can't trust your fellow Gryffindors, who can you trust?"

"Are you crazy?" hissed Ron, his head whipping in the direction of Raides' voice. "I mean, it's not that I don't trust them," he went on quickly because Hermione was looking slightly hurt, "but, what if they let it slip? Harry's in enough trouble. What if Dumbledore finds out?"

"He won't -- find out," said Harry sharply.

After eating the eggs and bacon Hermione had left him, Raides in hand, Harry Disapparated to Hogwarts without getting splinched and was very grateful. He met up with his clone, told it to hide somewhere (incidentally, it simply became smoke and vanished into thin air) while he walked around Hogwarts himself and it did so without complaint which he sort of expected. When his clone was gone, he found he had a couple of new memories and supposed they were from his clone. One of them included a conversation with Dumbledore joking about adding a graduate program to Hogwarts which he was glad he didn't have to take part in.

Another memory included Hedwig arriving with a letter from Cho. Without thinking, he went straight up to Gryffindor Tower, opened his trunk, pushed aside the Invisibility Cloak and found her letter lying there, exactly where he would have hidden it -- right along with where all the other letters had been since that day Ron stumbled upon one. Still not over how strange Animus Speculum was, Harry read it.

Dear Harry,  
I'm just really bored here and wanted to see what's going on over there. Everything's just fine here. Mom and dad are doing great. I actually started work with the Department of Magical Games and Sports. I spoke to Ron's brother Percy and he helped me get it. He's hinting that they're already planning the next Fire Quidditch game.

It's going to be a much bigger deal this time around than it has been in the past. I'm not supposed to tell even you yet, Cyrus Stone is, but they're planning a single elimination. England, Germany, the United States and now Bulgaria. Two teams are playing, the winners from one set go on to play the winner from the other set. I have a feeling it's going to be Germany versus England and Bulgaria versus the United States first. Goodness knows we're going to win against Germany but Bulgaria is saying they're putting Viktor Krum on their team! The first game is supposed to be around the end of May or the beginning of June, right around when Hogwarts' school year ends.

It's going to be great!

PS: Sirius wrote to tell me that Michelle is going to be arriving at Hogwarts because they think she's in trouble again. Sirius and Lupin lost track of Thantanos' whereabouts and Snape isn't getting anything out of You-Know-Who lately. Twelve Muggles were found dead in a park near your hometown, Harry! That's where they knew he was last but one of their contacts just disappeared. They think he was killed because You-Know-Who found out he was a spy. I'm starting to see why everyone was so afraid of him and it's not very comforting.

You'll probably get Sirius' owl in a day or two, it's just that I'm closer to him than you are so it takes longer.

Love,  
Cho

News about the Fire Quidditch game was all good and well except that Harry didn't know who Ron would be cheering for -- him or Viktor Krum? But the mention that they lost track of Thantanos Quirrel was not happy news at all.

Harry put his glasses down and rubbed his eyes again, this time with one hand, pinching the bridge of his nose a little as his index finger and thumb came together, then rested his forehead on his thumb. Pull yourself together, he told himself, it's not like Voldemort's going to come bashing in the Hogwarts front entrance, curse everyone in sight, kill Dumbledore and then finish you off, especially not with Raides.

When he was finished worrying, which took a good few minutes, he put the letter back in the bottom of his trunk, pulled out a fresh piece of parchment, took out his phoenix-feather quill, scribbled a note saying he wasn't allowed to go on the trip to New York because Fudge thinks he's a murderer and that he's Disapparating to and from there with Raides and (now holding the Order of Merlin plaque really tight), that she shouldn't worry about him. Harry knew she should would start worrying as soon as she read that but didn't really care.

Hedwig was to be found nibbling on a vole in the Owlery and was more than happy to deliver Harry's letter. It seemed that the only owl in there beside her had a crush on her and she found this very annoying. Harry could tell by the way the barn owl was eyeing her, its feathers all puffed out. With a cold look at it, Hedwig hooted and soared out of the Owlery, Harry's letter tied to one of her feet. The barn owl was now looking sulky, its feathers no longer puffed up but flat and depressed-looking.

Instead of going straight to Hogsmeade so he could Disapparate to Knockturn Alley, Harry stayed at Hogwarts for lunch, talking with the left-behind students, Professor Trelawney and Dumbledore.

Professor Trelawney's eyes, as they always did, filled with a great sadness when she saw him, hair pointing every which way, eyes avoiding hers. She didn't say anything, she simply kept shooting glances at him, occasionally letting out a soft, barely audible moan and Harry took this as a confirmation of the worst. Dumbledore had mentioned sometime in the middle of all this that the three students were allowed to visit Hogsmeade, but they just had to ask Mr. Filch first. Harry, Dumbledore added in an undertone to him before leaving, was allowed to go anywhere he wanted -- except New York, he added jokingly -- as long as he had Raides with him.

After lunch, Harry went straight to Hogsmeade then Disapparated to Knockturn Alley.

Knockturn Alley was just as Harry had left it five years ago. Most every shop looked like a Dark wizard's dream and he swore he could point out vampires among the crowd of people. Behind a big crate in a store named Beefy and Belligerent Beasts, Harry swore he saw the front end of a Blast-Ended Skrewt.

The store he vaguely recalled as having the Hand of Glory, Borgin and Burkes, was situated across a shop which held different-sized heads, in which a troll just entered and was two doors down from a store holding a cage of very large, very ugly spiders. Last time he'd found himself in here, he'd not spoken clearly enough. It was the first time he had ever used Floo Powder and he had gotten lost. Though he was older and it took a bit more to scare him, even Raides jumped when one of the heads from the shop across the street rolled past them, for the troll had apparently bashed the window in in his anger.

"What're you lookin' at! Eh?" it roared stupidly, staring at Harry, but then its tiny, mean little eyes fell on Raides who was grinning, her great teeth bared and the troll seemed to think better of it and walked away. One of its big feet squashed a gigantic black spider flat that had run out of its own store and Raides cried, "after-lunch snack!" The shopkeeper, not keen on cleaning the disgusting mess of tangled hairy legs and spider guts, let her eat it while Harry tried not to look for he just wanted to get what he needed and get out.

Borgin and Burkes was a large, dimly lit shop. Its appearance hadn't changed much since the last time Harry had seen it. Of course, he'd been looking at it from the inside of a cabinet for the most part; he'd been hiding himself from view of Lucius Malfoy and his son, Draco.

There was a glass eye on a small stand in front of the shop's window which greatly resembled the one Mad-Eye Moody had been using. Harry knew that this eye could see right through many things, including solid wood, the back of the owner's head and Invisibility Cloaks.

Mr. Borgin wasn't in the shop at the moment but Harry also knew that he was in a back room and there was a bell on the counter to ring. Before Harry touched the bell, he checked the price of the Hand of Glory.

"One Galleon, ten Knuts and three Sickles," he read off the white price tag, "-- that a lot?"

"I never used money," said Raides absentmindedly, vainly staring at herself in a mirror.

Harry rang the bell.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," snapped an oily, irritable voice and a moment later, Mr. Borgin, his hair as oily as his voice and slightly gray appeared behind the counter.

His face widened with delight at the sight of -- a customer, it appeared, because then his face went as white as parts of his hair at the sight of Harry.

"M-mr. Potter!" he said in a would-be calm voice, the oily tone vanishing in an instant.

Harry blinked. Did Mr. Borgin think him a murderer, too? Trying not to think about it, Harry was about to open his mouth -- but Mr. Borgin was too quick and he said nervously, "What can I do for you today?"

On a sudden inspiration, Harry said, "This isn't everything, but, have you heard of an Explicatrix?"

Mr. Borgin's eyes widened in delight once again. He seemed to be relieved that Harry wasn't buying anything for Dark magic -- which would change momentarily, unfortunately...

"Ah," he said impressively, "Cybele's Orb." But then he suddenly gave Harry a piercing stare and said in a guilt-inspiring voice, "That isn't your Triwizard clue, is it?"

Harry hesitated.

"Yes, but -- I was -- I was just wondering -- I've been trying to figure that thing out since I got it --"

Mr. Borgin had picked up his wand and stepped out from behind the counter and cut in, "To be honest with you, Mr. Potter --" he sighed deeply while polishing a glass ornament resembling a human tongue with a large puff ball protruding from his wand "-- no one has any idea what it does. Many of Dumbledore's -- colleagues -- shall I say (myself included), believe it does nothing --"

"That's just great!" Harry bursted out angrily. "Just what I need --"

"But," said Mr. Borgin loudly for Harry began to sputter incoherently, "he believes -- is totally convinced," he said irritably, rubbing harder with his wand's puff ball, "-- that it does something but he just doesn't know exactly what."

Because he trusted Dumbledore more than just about anyone else, Harry's brief worry was swept away like Mr. Borgin just started doing because the puff ball had exploded from brushing too hard in anger, spraying the floor with dust. He was sweeping it into a dustpan.

"There's no books?" Harry asked, thinking of what Hermione would do but he was sure no book at Hogwarts would be of any help; he'd read most of them with Ron and Hermione, "no references? Nothing?"

There was a pause while Mr. Borgin sweeped and Harry gave the back of his head a pleading look.

"Not -- a -- thing," said Mr. Borgin firmly, saying each word each time he scooped up more dust into the pan. Now he tipped the contents into a trash can.

Harry let out a sigh of exasperation. The last Triwizard clue he'd had, he didn't figure it out until he received help from Cedric Diggory, whose clue, while vague, helped. This time, he'd been looking since day one! Harry was almost sure Adrianne and Sebastian had figured theirs out already but once he figured out what it did, that was one thing. The next great challenge was to find out how to use it to help... !

Feeling it was hopeless, Harry asked, "I also want to buy that," pointing at the Hand of Glory.

Mr. Borgin laughed nervously.

"A-and what would be needing this for, Mr. Potter?" he said unsteadily.

"Er," said Harry.

He wasn't exactly sure how to reply but was now definitely sure Mr. Borgin thought him to be a murderer. There was a pause but it wasn't too long so it didn't make him look too guilty. It was Raides' growling laugh that rented the silent air.

"Such a joker," said Raides which, while she broke the silence and Harry was sure nothing she was going to say was going to incriminate him, once before had she said something to save him from punishment... "He's going to use it to sneak around Hogwarts at night," she finished with a laugh that Harry was glad Mr. Borgin joined in on -- however guilty he felt that Raides saved him in a conversation again.

Mr. Borgin looked only slightly calmer but he took the one golden Galleon, ten silver Sickles and three bronze Knuts without a word other than "bye" and disappeared in the back room again as Harry left the shop.

But the whole episode left Harry with a very foreboding feeling, the Hand of Glory in a white bag made of dragon short fur, just big enough to fit the Hand in. Realizing he didn't have any candles, he stopped at a shop in Diagon Alley to buy some, hiding the Hand of Glory from prying eyes as best he could.

Harry stayed for dinner that night, forced to because he had been cornered by Sarah and one of the other boys, Thomas Abbey, Harry learned his name was. Sarah explained away her bout with the Sorting Hat exactly has Harry thought it was: she had friends in another House but she couldn't persuade the hat to put her in Hufflepuff, claiming that she wasn't "boring enough." The Fat Friar, Hufflepuff's ghost, took great offense to this comment as he flew by. The other boy seemed to be either too intimidated by Harry to say anything, was in awe of his presence or he, too, thought Harry was a murderer. Neither of these were comforting.

It was later that night when Harry decided to write a letter back to Cho with something to send off to Sirius for him. All that Harry wrote was that he was "just great, looking forward to the Fire Quidditch game and I'll see you for the second task." It seemed the lump in his stomach that had settled in since the Hogsmeade incident and Fudge's letter forbidding him to go to New York was taking up much of his consciousness -- and he still didn't like Ron's use of the word "smuggle."

After Hedwig had flown out of one of the drafty Owlery windows, Harry marched straight back to Gryffindor Tower, performed Animus Speculum, headed towards Hogsmeade, invisible, and Disapparated himself to the Bayonne Complex, hoping not to have missed the duels entirely.

It wasn't a very large room, perhaps as big as the entire Dursley household. The marble floor was strangely sparkling as were the walls. And he hadn't missed the duels; Neville Longbottom was swinging a sword at Dean Thomas who was overcome with a fit of giggles.

"You're never going to hit him if you keep jabbing, Mr. Longbottom," said a voice behind Harry.

Harry wheeled around to be facing a wizard about as tall as Ron with a silver beard to rival Dumbledore's. There were grand, diamond-encrusted swords clutched in both of his hands, one facing forward, the other backwards, their tips curved. Whoever he was, he was one of the few teachers Harry saw here wearing robes and his were of pure black, reminding Harry ever so slightly of Professor Snape with the air of a ninja.

"Try one of these, Longbottom, and don't worry, they're enchanted to just go right through whoever -- or whatever -- you hit."

"Yes, Mr. Hayden," said Neville.

"Oh, I wish Potter was here," Professor Hayden mumbled to himself irritably, "then we might see something worth watching..."

"He's never actually really used a sword before," Hermione said, perhaps a little more bravely than she normally would have done.

"Oh? But what about --"

"That was a one-time thing," said Hermione, chuckling slightly. "That sword is sitting up in Dumbledore's office. He's never used it since."

"Well, even so, Miss Granger, I think it would be interesting."

Harry walked over to her and whispered "It's me" into her ear. Hermione tried hard not to jump. Harry had the feeling she wanted to say something but she settled for giving Professor Hayden a strained smile when he asked her if anything was wrong.

Professor Hayden then threw one of the huge swords into the air and, the sword spinning furiously, he caught it by the blade tip, looking like he had done nothing more than polish the handle. Neville, whimpering slightly, took it by the handle and swung at Dean Thomas who was still goggling at Professor Hayden. The sword must have weighed a lot because Neville's swing made him fall sideways onto the floor. But he made contact with Dean and the sword went right through him, ghost-like, leaving behind a strange gray smoke as it passed through.

Professor Hayden groaned quietly then said, "Miss Granger? Mr. Weasley?" looked slightly more hopeful. Neville and Dean stepped off a small rise on the ground where they had been dueling to join Parvati, Lavender and Seamus off the stage while Ron and Hermione each went to grab a sword off of a table full of them. Hermione took a short and sharply curved one while Ron grabbed the longest one he could find.

After ten minutes, nothing interesting had happened while they were swinging feebly at each other as if a hit would the other. Nothing interesting, however, if you discount the transparent, light blue shield that unexpectedly sprouted out the end of Ron's sword and fell to the ground. He picked it up but it didn't help much; after another five minutes, Hermione landed a well-placed jab with her light and speedy sword (Ron's lumbering one was no use) that cracked the shield in two and went through his stomach. Ron slammed into the white-sparkling wall -- but it was like the wall was one big, fluffy cushion and he bounced lightly off it. Hermione shrieked but --

"Excellent, Miss Granger!" cried Professor Hayden while Ron looked sulky and Hermione was suddenly beaming. "Perhaps you won't lose in under one minute like our guest students usually do tomorrow night when you get to duel one of our own!"

Hermione's face fell. Professor Hayden noticed this and he clapped her genially on the shoulder though for all the good it did, he might as well have told her to try her best.

"In any case," he said quietly, "Miss Patil? Mr. Finnigan?"

"Ron, I want to ask you something," Hermione said pointedly and tugging on the sleeve of Ron's robes. She was also pointing her head at the door, though subtly.

Ron caught on right away and followed her; so did Harry.

"Harry?" she whispered once they'd taken the short walk to the corridor outside.

Ron looked curiously at her. "I'm Ron, remember?"

"No, I'm here," said Harry.

"I still say you should get rid of the invisiblity charm," said Raides. "I don't think anyone's going to --"

"I think Professor Hayden would have a right fit if Harry showed up," said Hermione severely.

"On the contrary, I think he'd be delighted," said Ron casually and Harry couldn't help but agree.

"So, what's up?" asked Harry.

"The usual," Ron droned. "Professor Hayden can't stop babbling about how much he wishes you were here. You'd think you were his son the way he goes on and on and on and --"

"Okay, I get it," said Harry rolling his eyes though he knew no one could see. "Your mom and dad here?"

Hermione's face flickered between a smile and expressionless and only stopped when Harry said, just wanting her to stop, "Oh, don't start. I've had enough. So how're things going here?" he asked, feeling generally curious.

Hermione's face lit up once more and before Ron could stop her, she told Harry about the experiment they tried in Quidditch (four teams, fourty players - "but no one liked it, they couldn't catch one of the ten Golden Snitches," said Ron), the thirty foot Blast-Ended Skrewts the Care of Magical Creatures teacher bought off Hagrid ("Stay -- away," Ron warned) and --

"They found a bunch of dead creatures near one of the Fire Turrets just outside Whitewonder Tower a few days ago," Hermione said and Harry remembered it like it was yesterday.

Should he tell? He figured so, but when he did, Ron's mouth -- if it stretched far enough -- would be touching the floor while Hermione stared, a dazed look in her eye, at the last spot where she heard Raides.

More to stop them from giving him funny looks than anything else, Harry said quickly, "I think I'm going to try to use the library here to help me with the stupid Explicatrix."

Hermione seemed to quickly shake herself out of her daze and said, "You mean you haven't figured it out yet?"

"I've -- been -- looking," Harry hissed at her. "And I can't find a thing, Hermione, it's useless."

"Well you have until February the twenty-eighth, don't you?" Ron reminded the two of them.

"Yeah, but it doesn't help any if he can't find out what it does by then," Raides commented grimly.

"Don't say that," said Harry, glaring at her.

"Calm yourself," said Hermione, her hand stretching out as if she was going to pat Harry on the shoulder but then remembered that she couldn't see him and withdrew it. "If you can't find out anything on it in the library here, I swear it doesn't exist."

Harry gave her a weak smile she couldn't see and headed out of the Moonstone Complex and off towards the library. It was now dark so he had to pull out the Hand of Glory from the bag he'd been holding since he Disapparated. He pulled out a candle, lit it with his wand and put it in the holder inside the Hand. Where there was once light from the candle hitting the wall, putting the candle inside the Hand had the odd effect of taking the candlelight off the wall, as if it wasn't there, but Harry could still see as if it were.

Passing through the slightly curved corridor leading to Taconic Itenum that was made out of glass, he saw a group of passing Slytherins all looking very happy, coming the other way. He supposed they were taking the place of the Gryffindors soon to duel.

"No one actually duels for real anymore," he heard one of them say, "because the last time, in like 1430, this one guy almost lost but he brutally murdered his opponent!"

Trying to put that out of his head, Harry passed through the corridor leading out of the Taconic Itenum, which was also made of glass and into the library. He watched a small, winged creature about one foot high with a slightly transparent look to it, its forest-green skin clashing horribly with the golden carpet, scuttle past him. There were four sets of stairs in the corners evenly spaced out along the walls of the very wide circular library. They seemed to wind and wind farther and farther up until Harry's legs were getting tired and he was panting, his hand weakly clutching the railing.

At last he found a section entitled Ancient Magic and passed a student that looked horribly like a vampire. His skin was as white as death and he was draped in black robes with a very deep red cloak. To Harry's relief, the student was deeply engrossed in a book he didn't want to know the name of but Harry still had the eerie feeling he knew Harry was there, even though Harry's back was to him and he was invisible. So Harry tip-toed past him and into a thick enclosure of bookshelves.

"Hermione's dream," Harry muttered soundlessly to himself, his eyes taking in the towering bookshelves which were so high he didn't think anyone could reach except maybe Hagrid. "No wonder she was talking for about an hour about this place."

He would have to use his wand to get books off the top shelves and make himself float just to even read the names of them. But with the student so closely resembling a vampire -- though, you know, he was quite sure he was safe there. No headmaster in their right mind would let a student in who would want to suck someone else's blood -- he thought better of it.

"Doesn't look pleasant, does he?" said Raides in Harry's head.

"No," Harry replied absentmindedly, scanning the names of book covers.

But he was there for quite a while, until the vampire-like student had left with a creepy glance over in Harry's direction though he knew he couldn't be seen. Harry counted two elongated teeth and let out an involuntary shiver. He'd read about vampires before he knew was a wizard but never dreamed that they actually existed. When the student had finally been out of sight (though unfortunately not out of mind), Harry looked skyward to the books on the shelves towering overhead.

"Not a thing!" Harry said in a fierce whisper, slamming A History On Cybele shut.

"Oh, it's five in the damn morning," Raides yawned, "can't we go to sleep?"

"You've been sleeping ten thousand years, you should feel wide awake -- and I'm not tired," said Harry, yawning too.

They had to finally go at six when their candle burned out. 


	38. Losing Friends Again

Chapter 38: LOSING FRIENDS AGAIN

"You're joking."

"You really didn't find anything?"

"No, he's not joking."

"We were there until six in the morning. I found a book called A History On Cybele. I found nothing on the Explicatrix but if Professor Binns ever gives us a paper to write on her, I'll get an A."

It was the next morning and Harry had tapped both Ron and Hermione on the shoulder and they snuck out of the Lodi Dining Hall down to the common room, out of Whitewonder Tower and into the Taconic Intersect, sitting on a three seat couch where no one would interrupt them.

"I don't believe it!" Hermione shrieked indignantly. "The --"

"If you're going to say the library here has never failed you, Hermione," Ron began slowly before she'd gotten another word out, "please don't, because I think I'll laugh very hard."

Harry was sniggering silently while Hermione tried to retain her dignity.

"I think we're going to have to look with you," she said. "Or maybe we can ask one of the teachers here? Maybe Professor Hayden knows something about it!"

"Maybe we can bring it up when he goes on in today's speech about what they know about the ancients?" suggested Ron.

"Where is that?" asked Harry at once. "That I want to see, seeing as how," he continued, his voice much quieter and feeling a certain emptiness, "you know, I'm an ancient and everything..."

Hermione seemed to have spotted that Harry's voice had slid into silence because no one seemed to know much about ancients except maybe, of course, Harry's parents because she said hastily, "He gave us a small taste of it -- they found this timeline of a few ancients' lives and it shows people dying and then showing up again some fifty years later. They think someone was playing with what had been written down to prevent someone down the line from finding Raides. You know, to set them on a wrong path so they'd be looking for her somewhere else. And it worked, didn't it? No one ever found her until --" But Hermione had broken off too. It was just as big a mystery to Professor Hayden, Harry surmised, as it was to Harry how he had found the Book of Memories.

"Tonight at three, halfway between lunch and dinner," Ron injected also quite hastily. "He's taking questions after the talk. It's on the second auditorium on the third floor of Torr Lounge. Take a left at that stone troll that reminds you of Goyle."

"That's probably what that book that Professor Dumbledore told me about was trying to do," Harry remembered suddenly. "Remember? It suggested Cybele came back to life?"

"Sounds like it," said Hermione pensievely. "They sure went through a whole lot of trouble to prevent anyone from finding her."

Harry chanced a glance at Raides. She was sitting nonchalant next to him, looking quite bored. He grinned at her.

"You must be capable of something really powerful, there, Raides," he said to her.

She grinned back.

In the time before Professor Hayden's speech in Torr Lounge, Harry wandered unseen around the library some more. He spotted the student who so closely resembled a vampire holding what looked horribly like a vial of blood. At lunch, he spotted Ron in the first floor of the library (probably looking for Harry) and poked him in the back and whispered, "Hungry?" They had lunch together in the Lodi Dining Hall with Hermione, carefully avoiding anyone else. Ginny was most upset when Ron told her to "clear off."

As three o'clock drew near, there was a large number of students gathering in the huge common room on the second floor of Torr Lounge. Dean Thomas was talking animatedly to Seamus Finnigan but Harry couldn't make a word out owing to the drawling voice of Malfoy blocking it.

"You know how all the ancients turned to Dark wizards," Harry heard him saying matter-of-factly ("You and the rest of the world," Harry thought bitterly). Hermione's head snapped in Malfoy's direction at these words, a cold look coming over her face. "It's that staff of his. Yeah, Granger?" he said, spotting Hermione giving him a look of deepest loathing. "Going to say something about Potter? Because he is a Dark wizard, turned into one just like the rest of his kind. And I don't care," he drawled on loudly and now blocking out Hermione's words which Harry strongly suspected were insults, "because that staff did it."

"Can I please just bite his leg off?" asked Raides pleadingly in Harry's head. "No one will ever know!"

Harry didn't respond, mostly because, while Hermione's words weren't getting her point across, her hand across Malfoy's face sure did. There was a hushed silence where everyone stared at the pair of them as Malfoy drew out his wand from inside his robes and said, "Come on, you filthy Mudblood!" He waved his wand threateningly at her. "What, is Potter here? Invisible?"

"No," said Hermione nervously and Harry saw Ron's eyes dart to where he knew Harry had been last but Harry had since moved.

Harry didn't have to say a word to Raides; she leapt lightly into the air and landed on soundlessly on Harry's outstretched hand as the great staff, just to be ready, just in case Malfoy actually tried to curse her. Though he had no idea what he'd be able to do that would not attract a lot of unwanted attention. What happened next left Harry feeling dazed.

"Avada Kedavra!" were the words Harry swore escaped Malfoy's mouth as a powerful burst of green light escaped Malfoy's wand.

At the same time, Harry had stupidly pointed Raides at Hermione just as she had pulled out her own wand to curse Malfoy. As a white light escaped the staff's tip, vanishing instantly, the same white light escaped Hermione's wand that didn't vanish. The light from her wand and the light from Malfoy's connected in midair and blew up, creating a huge burst of bright, green light. But that wasn't all. There was such a powerful explosion that everyone in the common room, including Harry and Raides, was thrown away from it so hard that they hit the wall behind them with a crack.

Hermione was staring at her wand with Ron while Harry was staring at Malfoy's broken one.

"A simple Banishment Charm connecting with a Deflector," Harry heard someone mutter as everyone got to their feet. "You'd think it'd just fizzle..."

People were rubbing their backs and making sure their wrists were still working as quite a few of them had used their hands to break their crash. But far removed from making sure his back hadn't broken from being slammed into a wall (it was stinging quite a bit), Harry was far more interested in what he had seen and heard. He knew, as much as Malfoy hated Hermione, he wouldn't try to kill her as that would quickly land him a cell in Azkaban for life.

Something of the sort had happened before when Voldemort had been attempting a permanent Imperius upon Harry from the Mark of Ancients. But how? Harry thought furiously, there is no Mark of Ancients to control this time! Harry had thought he had seen someone cast that same curse but the light had been red, not the proper color which was green. But now he had seen the proper color and heard the words... but still, would Malfoy... ?

Harry found that he didn't want any explanations. He simply wanted to put it out of his mind, vaguely recalling some advice he had once used when he found himself in a right rut. Part of him wanted to grab Ron and Hermione this second and tell them what had happened. It seemed that they thought Hermione had done that and knowing very well that Hermione might be capable of something of the sort, he might very well get away with it. Another part of him didn't want to but no sooner had he made up his mind then Professor McGonagall bursted in. She looked livid, as her eyes, presently narrowed into slits of rage, surveyed the scene. Students were still getting to their feet. More than one wand had broken as some took theirs out.

"Someone -- explain!" she demanded.

"Please, professor. My wand -- it did something funny," said Hermione and Harry felt very guilty for letting her go on -- but there was nothing he could do, Hermione might well give him away if he tried to hint to her it was him. She shot a nasty look at Malfoy then went on. "Malfoy called me a -- a -- and then he tried to curse me and I merely pulled my wand out to stop him..."

"It was a Banishment Charm and Granger had tried a Deflector Charm," explained the student who had spoken before.

"And, I dare ask, what was that extremely loud bang I heard?" asked Professor McGonagall, still furious. "How did that happen, Mr. Jayden, is it?"

"The two spells collided," Jayden said, "and created a huge explosion."

Professor McGonagall's rage now broke over Hermione.

"Miss Granger!" she bellowed like an angry dinosaur, her eyes roving over the broken lamps powered by candles whose flames were quickly extinguished by students, cracked chairs and paintings that had fallen off the walls. "I hardly expected this!"

"Professor --" Hermione tried to cut in, her own eyes casting a horrified look at a chair that had been nearly consumed in a fire.

"And of all Gryffindors, you!" Professor McGonagall continued, drowning out Hermione's words, too (though Harry didn't think they were insults nor would she slap a teacher). "Detention, Miss Granger! You are also forbidden to go to the speech at three! And I shall be fetching Professor Snape to deal with you, Mr. Malfoy," she added scathingly to him and it looked like she wished him nothing but ill.

Harry stood there, dumbstruck, while Professor McGonagall cast one last dark look over Hermione, glass shards that had fallen from the once-extravagant chandelier overhead, and Malfoy. Hermione was looking violated to say the least; everyone was staring at her. And finally, Professor McGonagall turned on her heel and left, beckoning Hermione to follow her.

There was simply no question. Harry couldn't possibly let her think her wand had done that, though he had a pretty good feeling she knew that it wasn't just her wand. Ron, thankfully, seemed to know what Harry was thinking because he casually walked out after Professor McGonagall, looking pointedly around for Harry, who followed him. He headed straight for Lodi Hall, the top floor where Harry had been sleeping.

"Okay, Harry," he said flatly once they'd reached the quiet of the Lodi Guest Dormitory, waiting for an explanation, one impatient hand on each of his hips, "what happened."

"I just tried to stop Malfoy cursing her!" explained Harry indignantly, sitting on his usual bed and making a depression on it.

Ron immediately looked straight at him though he couldn't see him. He was spinning around nervously again like he had been doing when Harry broke the news that he could possess people, looking just as nervous. Truthfully, Harry had no idea what happened. And more truthfully, he didn't want to make Ron panic any more by telling him he had heard Malfoy saying the words to the Killing Curse, though he knew it wasn't real... It was just like... There was no need to, was there? This time around he knew it wasn't real so he didn't have to enter a panic that it was... right?

"It's like it's coming back," Harry muttered miserably to himself. "If it's not already back..."

"What's coming back?" Ron snapped, taking a hand off his hip and pressing two fingers hard to his forehead in frustration. "You blew up the common room, Harry! What happened!" Ron repeated loudly.

"But it -- it can't have," Harry went on talking to himself, ignoring Ron.

It couldn't be coming back, could it? Harry thought to himself.

"What the bloody hell are you on about?" Ron demanded.

"The Mark of Ancients --"

"Oh not the stupid Nota Vetustum again," Ron interrupted impatiently. "I thought we all agreed it was impossible?"

"We never actually agreed on anything," said Harry truthfully and quietly as if he didn't want Ron to hear.

"It's -- not!" said Ron very loudly as if there was nothing more to discuss. "Try to make your skin glitter or glow! We were there when Dumbledore and everyone removed it from you! There's just no chance!"

"Then explain the unnerving -- to say the very least -- vision I had when Lucius Malfoy died!" Harry shouted angrily. "That wasn't made by no Dark magic! And don't you dare ask me why they killed Lucius! But they did the world a favor, let me tell you, that's for sure --"

"Yes, one less Death Eater that's going to try to kill you, very good, Harry," said Ron in a flat tone that was dripping from every square inch with sarcasm. "It's no surprise that Malfoy thinks you killed his dad, is it? Hermione's got detention now because of you and she can't go to the speech. You're certainly not going to get all the questions you want answered without her there unless you can think of everything she has!"

"What're you yelling at me for?"

"Oh, this is nothing to what Hermione's probably going to say --" Ron let Harry know in a bossy voice.

"How was I supposed to know --"

"-- to you when she gets out of detention --"

"-- that was going to happen!"

"-- because she's been going on and on about it for days!"

They stopped yelling at each other for a bit which gave Harry an idea... however drastic...

"Maybe I could use Foresight," he suggested but Ron put his foot down -- right on Harry's who jumped up, knocking Ron down.

"Don't you think that Raides has done enough damage?" Ron declared while Harry grabbed Ron's hand to pull him up but Ron refused it. He got up by himself.

"I just thought --"

"Don't -- think -- anything," said Ron coldly. "You blew apart the common room and act like nothing happened --"

"What d'you mean 'like nothing happened?' I just thought that --"

"Though what?" said Ron, his voice now icy. "Use Foresight, destroy Dumbledore's trust and --"

"WHAT THE HELL D'YOU WANT ME TO DO?" Harry bellowed.

"Nothing," said Ron simply and he walked out, leaving Harry to scratch his head in confusion, staring blankly where Ron had stepped on his foot.

Harry was feeling extremely irritable after that. He had caught up with Ron and convinced him to ask questions if Harry whispered them in his ear but it wasn't without some more angry voices and another sore foot. Hermione's detention was going to be to tend to the Murtlaps that were used for the Graduate students. Ron explained to Harry, very stiffly, that eating the growth on their backs that so closely resembled a sea anemone it gives a resistance to curses and jinxes. But Hermione had eaten too much in her own demonstration and had come to Torr Lounge just before the speech with hair in her ears that clashed horribly with the rest of herself -- it was purple.

Ron had told Harry this because Hermione flat out refused to speak to Harry, showing him her back and her folded arms.

"Oh come on, Hermione," said Harry desperately who had somehow convinced Ron and her to go up to a deserted floor of Torr Lounge. "Say something!"

Silence.

"Please?"

Still more silence.

"Fine. Forget it. And clip the disgusting hair out of your ears because it's really gross."

At once, Hermione seized Ron's hand, made a noise in the back of her throat and stormed downstairs, Ron nearly tripping on his robes as she pulled him. Harry didn't bother following. He had done something of the sort before without realizing it, making both Ron and Hermione distance themselves from him. Harry didn't like it then and he didn't like it now nor did he like the idea that now he had no one to talk to except a ten thousand year old ancient staff that was leaving him with a less than guiltless feeling every time he looked at her. He held out his hand, she leapt into it and at once, she fell lifeless.

Three o'clock had finally come. Hermione followed Professor McGonagall towards the Moonstone Complex to deal with the Murtlaps and Harry silently followed Ron though he had a small urge to step on his foot as he had done to Harry twice now.

The auditorium that Professor Hayden and the Graduate student, Mark Jayden (Harry thought it odd that their names were so similar), was absolutely tremendous. Harry thought it could fit one entire floor of Hogwarts from end to end. He supposed it had been enlarged by magic because none of the other floors were so grandeur in size.

Strangely, the speech seemed to put everyone to sleep. Neville had drooled on his robes, Dean Thomas was looking like he always did in Professor Binns' class and Harry felt like he was back in Divination when Professor Hayden had reached the bit about the ancients. Harry was glad no one could see his extremely red face and was finally able to sit down when a very bored-looking student from Slytherin got up and left.

When the proper time had come, he poked Ron harder than he needed to and hissed, "Ask him if he knows anything about the Explicatrix!"

Professor Hayden's face fell. He had just been talking about some of Cybele's lesser-known exploits.

"Mr. Weasley, is it?" he said, sizing Ron up and Harry was hoping he was going to try his best to answer, though it looked like he didn't have a clue. Ron nodded. "You're one of Harry's best friends, yes?" Ron's upper lip curled but Professor Hayden took this as a yes, choosing wisely, in Harry's opinion, to ignore the angry look on Ron's face. "The Explicatrix is a mystery to many of us. Just like the staff itself, no one seems to be able to figure out what it does. I believe it fell in the hands of your school's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore."

Harry crossed his fingers behind his back, hoping that he didn't somehow know that it was his Triwizard clue. Or that Dumbledore didn't care. In either case, Professor Hayden continued.

"We have strong reason to believe, with Dumbledore's help, that is what we call a shape-intention changer. That is, when someone holds it who is an ancient, it will change size and shape. The shape, we know, is according to what House the wielder would have been sorted into at your school. We also know that the same magic that went into your school's Sorting Hat -- which is another mystery, I assure you -- is the same magic that went into the Explicatrix, Raides and all of Cybele's other artifacts."

Other artifacts? thought Harry curiously. He wasn't quite sure if he wanted to run into them.

"She wanted to keep tabs on who used her things. Very protective of anything she'd invented, she was. What with the magic Raides is capable of being the reason she was lost for ten thousand odd years, it's no surprise," Professor Hayden commented grimly, pacing across the stage. "The Explicatrix looks like a crystal ball. A light blue transparent one with silver smoke inside of it. Dumbledore, and a few of my contacts at the West World of Warlocks Wizarding Foundation believe one of Cybele's other creations, the Book of Memories --" Harry's jaw dropped "-- has something to say on the subject."

So the book was one of Cybele's creations, Harry thought, his mouth slowly closing. So then, was it made as a guide to all of her inventions? What else could it tell him? Why had Peter Pettigrew been walking around with it so much last year (before his untimely death)? Why did it cause Harry to experience... that.

"The only possible hint," Professor Hayden continued, "as to what it does is this. The name, Explicatrix, is Latin. It means 'explanation.' The inscription on the Book, Libri Intus Memoriae, means simply 'Book of Memories.' While we're not quite sure why she named the book that, we believe the Explicatrix to be some sort of ancient, highly advanced crystal ball but we're no closer to figuring out what it does as we are of killing You-Know-Who."

That was the last sensible piece of information Professor Hayden managed to get out and even that did not help much. Harry had treated the Explicatrix like a crystal ball that very night to no avail. He tried to get Hermione's help but she flat out refused to even acknowledge someone poking her on the shoulder.

"The wind must be very strong!" she said in a strange voice the fourth time Harry tried to get her attention and just like every other time, she grabbed Ron's hand and stalked off. Harry was not pleased to see that Ron made no attempt to stop her.

Harry ate dinner alone that night for Ron and Hermione, as he expected (though he hoped it wasn't going to be), didn't want to talk with him then, either. Bored, his heart sinking over worry about the Explicatrix being an impossible puzzle to solve (if Dumbledore can't crack it, what in the world makes them think I can, he thought irritably), he resigned to the worst: he would spend every night in the Camden Library until he found something.

The vampire-like student was back that very night, a bag full of books slung over his shoulder much like how Harry was used to seeing Hermione. It wasn't the presence of the student that scared Harry that night. For a few minutes, he wanted to come right out and say he was at Laurence Patrick Hayden's. And that no one had died. And that no one was any worse off with him there.

The thought of what Malfoy would say stopped him. Harry pictured the look of savage triumph all over his pale, pointed face, thinking that Harry had snuck out of Hogwarts to kill someone else. Harry felt he could just point out that, in fact, no one had died yet but knew it wouldn't be enough.

Ron and Hermione weren't speaking to him, he couldn't talk to anyone but Raides and he didn't feel like going back to Hogwarts. Add in the knowledge that half of the wizarding world considered him a murderer... But then he stopped dead in his thoughts because he heard a voice say "Hello?"

At first, Harry acted like he hadn't heard anything.

"Harry, you aren't deaf, are you?" the voice said, sounding like it was coming from a ninety year old man rather than someone that looked no older than thirteen -- despite his ghostly white face.

Harry turned slowly around.

"You can -- can see me?" he said slowly, thinking he should just use a Memory Charm now and Disapparate to Hogwarts.

"I'm not going to tell anyone," the student replied, closing his eyes lazily and shaking his head, a smile crossing his face in a fashion that made Harry uncomfortable. "I've known you were here since you arrived. And stop looking at me like I'm going to suck your blood. I may be a vampire, but... Anyway, I just wanted to know if you knew anything about these damned Blast-Ended Skrewts?" he asked, pointing at a sheet of paper in his hands which had some long fingernails.

Harry enjoyed a fifteen minute conversation going over all of the finer points of how to avoid getting stung, bitten or scorched while handling them. When the conversation had finished, Liam, Harry learned his name was, had some advice to offer on making Ron and Hermione speak to him again.

"For Christ's sake, Harry," he had said as if it was painfully obvious while Harry nervously eyed the two fangs, "apologize."

Harry wanted them to apologize, not the other way around.

All in all, he supposed he could trust Liam. Liam certainly hadn't done anything to cause any alarm. After all, he had known Harry was there since he first got there...

Harry walked off and Liam went back to doing whatever he was doing. There was no ignoring the increased guilt he had that night as an irritable Ron brought up him to the Lodi Guest Dormitory. Not a word was spoken between them and it was perhaps this that made a sizeable amount dead weight seem to Apparate inside of Harry's stomach over worry, worry about getting Ron to talk to him again, getting Hermione to even look at him and the unsolvable clue that was the Explicatrix.

"Thanks," said Harry once they had reached the top of the tower.

Ron merely grunted to show he had heard -- though Harry had the distinct impression he didn't care for the thanks -- and shuffled off. Probably wanting to get back to Hermione as quickly as possible, thought Harry. They've been paying much more attention to each other and have sort of ignored me...

It was true. Indeed, many opportunities had been passed up by Ron and Hermione to safely speak to Harry. Should I be paying more attention to Cho? he thought quickly, the feeling exacerbated by the heavy dead weight swirling inside of him. It swirled and swirled, making him feel slightly nauseous but, at least, he never exactly recalled Cho giving any signs of him having neglected her. Slightly uplifting was knowing that his clone at Hogwarts was doing exactly what he would do which would probably be sending Cho a letter right about now.

Now was the time to shelve his pride and face -- or at least try to use a Reduction Charm on -- the weight and... apologize.

The next morning was a very irritable one for Harry. He kept walking up to Ron and Hermione, opening his mouth to apologize, felt something blocking his throat and walked away, glad they couldn't see his repeated failed attempts. Prodding them in the back proved to have no effect either.

"Did you feel something?" said Hermione in a fakely curious voice the third time Harry tried this. She grabbed Ron's hand and walked away.

At long last, the time seemed to come when Ginny and Parvati had left their table in the Lodi Dining Hall for lunch.

"See you later," said Ginny. "Oh and Mom's going to go with me to North Palisades Tower. Tomorrow, too."

"What for?" asked Ron, putting his cup up to his lips to drink the water. "Dad's going to the Bayonne Complex with me, today and tomorrow, too."

Before Ginny could answer, Mrs. Weasley appeared, took her daughter gingerly by the hand, waved at Hermione and, looking thoroughly excited about something, left.

"Let's just hope they don't run into Liam!" said Hermione which made Ron laugh, some water dribbling down his mouth. He hastily put it down and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "Honestly, why would they let a vampire in, though? How old is he, fourteen?"

"Fourteen hundred, more like," Ron chuckled.

Now was the time to do it; they both had food in their mouth.

"Ron, Hermione --" Harry began sulkily, a dull expression on his face while standing behind Ron, but --

"What?" Hermione snapped hotly.

Ron looked up from his plate, again forgetting that he couldn't see Harry as his head swiveled around. This time, Harry had the distinct impression Ron was interested in what Harry had to say for himself. In Hermione's case, from the narrowed eyes under Hermione's hastily combed bushy brown hair, she didn't -- though it seemed like she had been thinking about it a lot.

"I'm sorry," said Harry simply.

What Hermione said next caught Ron by surprise.

"'I'm sorry.' And that's supposed to make everything all right again, Harry, is it? Go ahead already and get caught by the Ministry of Magic here and sent to Azkaban," she said savagely and stormed off.

Harry stared uncertainly after her until he could no longer see her. Ron spoke next.

"She's really upset by this entire thing. Hermione's been talking and talking and she still thinks you're a nutter for even having done what you did, coming here and everything. She was so upset last night at you that she didn't even want to mention your name. And you're not helping any, Harry. So just -- just leave us alone."

He said all this very fast. Ron then stood up very abruptly and he, too, left.

Feeling twice as stupid and confused, Harry sat heavily in Ron's empty seat. Liam entered the Dining Hall. To avoid him, Harry ducked under the table. He didn't know why, but he had a feeling Liam would be asking him questions as he was sure Ron and Hermione had been looking sulky on the way out. His suspicion was confirmed when Liam casually swiveled his head like Ron had done. Checking between chair legs, Harry only came out when he was sure Liam couldn't see him.

The trek back to the Lodi Guest Dormitory was uninviting so Harry decided instead to see what Ginny and Mrs. Weasley were up to in North Palisades Tower. It was nothing very fascinating; one of the teachers was holding a wizarding fashion show. Mrs. Weasley, Hermione and Ginny were all very giggly. Not feeling very happy nor wanting to smile or laugh, Harry found Ron and was going to retrieve the Explicatrix from the top of Lodi Hall. Ron, however, flat out refused to escort Harry, even disacknolwedging his existence after Harry said please. Consequently, Harry then spent a good few more hours in the library, poring over book after book.

The next book, he kept saying to himself, vaguely remembering saying something much the same during the last Triwizard Tournament, it'll be in the next one...

When he had depleted a stack of thirty or so books, he decided to give up and head back. If he couldn't find Ron, he resolved to take Raides and Disapparate to Hogwarts. Then he remembered that Raides, too, was at the top of Lodi Hall. He'd have to sleep somewhere but where, he didn't know...

Liam hadn't come by at all, probably having finished his research on the terrible Blast-Ended Skrewts, thought Harry. He looked at the golden watch on his wrist. It was four in the morning. Then he took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes as an uncontrollable urge to grab the Order of Merlin plaque came sweeping over him. There was no way around it, he would either have to find Ron or Hermione and plead with them to bring him up to bed or find a soft, comfy part of the hard, marble floor to curl up on, trying to conjure a feeble blanket with his fingertips. Although the wooden and metal walls were thick, that didn't stop the snow outside from making it feel cold.

Feeling thoroughly miserable now, Harry put his glasses back on, wrapped his cloak as tight around himself as possible and stood up, heaving a great sigh. He knew it, he knew Ron wasn't going to bring him back up; he had already refused Harry once and there was just no chance Hermione was going to do it. He wasn't even sure they were still in the Lodi Hall common room for him like they had been doing. Though he now wished he hadn't ever asked them to do that for him; it had been stupid and insensitive of him to ask them to stay up in the wee hours of the morning just so he could get to bed.

Closing his eyes sharply, a feeling of self-disgust on his face as he took a deep breath and exhaled then letting his eyes slowly open, Harry set off towards the Greenhouse Complex. Vaguely remembering Lavender Brown saying something about no one ever going up to the top floor where the deadliest man eating plants were, he figured he'd have the best chance of not getting caught up there. A Summoning Charm wouldn't work; Hermione had read in A History of Hayden's that, somehow, they figured out how to block spells by a tricky set of powerful, ancient charms.

Just to make sure, just to see, he walked all the way towards Lodi Hall. As he expected, there was no one sitting there, no one left to take him upstairs. When Harry was crossing the grandly echoing Whitewonder Tower, he heard hurried footsteps coming up behind him. Someone was panting heavily.

He turned around and saw Ron hurtling towards him. It wasn't the expression of utmost terror on his face that gave away what had happened, nearly making Harry's heart stop, it was the state of his usual tattered, second-hand robes and what he was carrying.

"Ron," said Harry weakly, dropping all pretense that he wasn't going to speak to him.

Ron, who was about to crash right into Harry, skidded to a halt and began sputtering incoherently, the expression of utmost terror not dying in the slightest. Harry shook him and felt his hands. They were as cold as the snow outside, which was quite the same color as Ron's face.

Harry tried to tell Ron to get a hold of himself but didn't think it would do any good. After some few moments of Harry staring into the dead-looking eyes of Ron, Ron managed to string a few words together that made some sense.

"I -- I don't know what made me do it," Ron sputtered, blood all over his robes and a knife just as bloody clutched in his hand. "He -- he attacked me!" 


	39. The Second Test

Chapter 39: THE SECOND TEST

Harry immediately began to feel some of the panic that he'd been looking at in Ron's eyes. But Ron wouldn't... he couldn't... ?

"Ron," said Harry shakily, dreading the answer, "what -- exactly did you do?"

Ron shot the knife a look like he had just seen a thirty foot spider then suddenly dropped it as if seeing it in his hand for the very first time. There was nothing Harry knew that scared Ron more than a spider.

Ron then muttered something so quietly that Harry couldn't make a word out.

Harry, starting to feel more anxious over the answer, waved Ron on to try again.

"I killed him," said Ron in a very strangled voice as though that same spider was stuck in his throat. He kicked the knife ten feet down the corridor, streaking the floor with a thin line of blood. "I don't know!" Ron cried, and Harry could see the beginnings of what was going to be a flood of tears any moment as Ron sniffed. Ron was also helplessly shaking both his hands. "He came at me with his -- his fangs out and he chased me down the stairs!" Now Ron was backing up against the wall. "All my spells didn't work -- they just bounced off him! I grabbed a knife from the Dining Hall and stabbed him with it... I didn't wanna become a vampire!" he squealed, sinking against the wall.

It disturbed Harry to see Ron like this; he was holding his hands just above the knees of his robes as if he didn't want to touch them with his bloody hands and taint them, as if the blood would burn a hole right through them.

Harry didn't know what to say and he didn't think "It's all right, Ron," would do any good. He was simply staring at Ron in the same kind of numb disbelief he'd had when Dudley and Lucius Malfoy died. Then he had a sudden idea. He wasn't quite sure if they'd ever get away with it but it was better than standing there and staring.

"No one's going to believe he attacked me," Ron whispered, his voice sounding as though it was going to stop working any minute. "They're just gonna send me straight to Azkaban!"

Worried was not the word for it.

"Come on," said Harry, his mind made up; guilty as he knew he was going to feel, he was going to see what Raides had to say.

He grabbed Ron above the elbow, picked up the bloodied knife, stuck it inside Ron's robes and the pair of them walked limpily all the way back to the top of Lodi Hall where Raides lay. Before even grabbing Raides, Harry wiped the knife clean with a bit of water from his wand. Raides' first suggestion was --

"A Memory Charm," she said, staring calmly at the disturbing image of Ron who was now shaking with fright -- nor did he seem to notice anything that Raides and Harry were doing.

There was only one reason Harry could think of why he wasn't acting exactly like Ron was: he'd been through enough all year so far to seemingly make his body forget what real shock felt like. The thought didn't make him feel any better... but he had his head which was more than he could say for Ron.

"Look at him, Harry," said Raides, "do you honestly think you shouldn't? Look, what if this whole thing blows over?"

"BLOWS OVER?" Harry bellowed. "Are you mad? Blows over? How the hell is it going to blow over?"

"Look, he killed a vampire," said Raides and Harry was horrified to note that she was acting so calm it was like Ron had simply just fed Crookshanks, "and last time I checked, vampires weren't held in such high regards. Ron's wrong; they'll believe a full human -- especially a pureblood wizard -- before they believe a part-human, a vampire," she commented as though this settled the matter.

Harry thought it over for a minute. And thought it over, and thought it over, and thought it over... all the while staring sharply at Raides, the guilt still rising. She hadn't been wrong before, had she? he asked himself, the guilt becoming unbearable.

Plaque in hand, Harry asked, "And if it doesn't?"

"Well you don't have any other choice, do you?" she said in a bossy tone that made Harry almost not want to do it, but she was quite right, he certainly didn't want to leave Ron like this.

He knew well how it felt, felt to be terrified beyond your wits...

"Obliviate!" Harry shouted, pointing Raides at Ron, not really knowing how a Memory Charm works.

A blast of light issued from the end of the crystal and a dreamy look came over Ron's face as his eyes slid out of focus.

"Ugh, what am I doing with this red stuff on my sleeves?" said Ron placidly. "Ablutum!" he shouted, which cleaned the -- Ron seemed to have no idea what it really was -- blood off his robes.

Harry thought it best to forget the whole experience. So Ron had been attacked by a blood-thirsty vampire? So he had killed Liam? He decided to let Ron go back downstairs, not even go to search for Liam's body, hoping to wake up the next morning and look shocked to hear that Liam had been found dead. He had gone to bed that night, his Order of Merlin plaque still in his hand (which did nothing), shaking slightly for a good hour before drifting off into the usual dream again except this time Voldemort had fangs. At least no one was around to hear him scream when he woke up...

It was about dinner time, Harry found out, when he had woken up the next morning. Not believing he could have slept so long, the first thing he did when Ron woke him up and told him what time it was was to check his own golden wristwatch. Indeed, it was six in the afternoon.

Something struck him as distinctly odd about Ron's appearance though he couldn't quite point it out and Ron also seemed to know exactly where Harry was, as though the Invisibility Charm Harry had been wearing day and night wasn't there. Looking at his hands, it looked as though it hadn't left. Hermione, clever as she was, probably researched something at the library.

The same as it was with Ron, something distinctly odd also struck Harry about Hermione though he also couldn't quite point it out. It was subtle, but it was there. But they were talking to him again, and their bad moods seemed to have burned out while he'd been sleeping; they did look happier than they had the previous day. In fact, they act like nothing bad ever happened between them.

Through dinner, Harry nervously avoided discussing the previous night's events with Hermione or doing anything to trigger a break in the Memory Charm he put on Ron. Though he probably shouldn't worry, he said to himself quickly, he didn't think even Dumbledore would be able to break an ancient Memory Charm, if he hadn't damaged Ron's memory completely...

He followed Ron towards the Bayonne Complex, hoping to get a chance, if at all possible, to remove the Invisibility Charm and challenge Ron or Hermione. The strange but familiar feeling that he was being watched was upon him the entire time. He also felt like he was being moved around, which was strange, since he was moving himself, but that feeling stopped when they arrived at their destination. It was creepy, as if an invisible hand was pushing him.

Any hope of taking up a sword for himself wasn't going to happen because today was the day of the finals: the Graduate students were going to challenge the best of the Hogwarts students. That list included a very put-out looking Hermione.

Nothing was wrong, thought Harry, until the unthinkable happened.

The Graduate student, whom Harry had seen before and thought of as very good natured, now took a dangerous swipe at Hermione's head. Harry turned away right before it happened but the strangled gulp Hermione had made before her head and body were separated filled him with a fresh bottle of nausea. Many pairs of arms and legs flew past him and as he made a mad dash to get out. Next thing he knew, there was a large sword sticking out his chest and a large amount of pain coming from his forehead. There was a flash of green light and Harry was out cold.

When he awoke, the scene wasn't much more pleasing. His head was spinning. Hermione, Ron, dead... or were they? He didn't have much time to think about it except for the fact that he'd had a similar experience.

When Harry turned his head to see where he was, there was another dead body next to him, that of someone he'd miss much more than Lucius or Dudley. He knew this right away; the sight of it brought a swoop of bone-freezing chills to his spine.

The red hair, the thin appearance, a dusty, travel-worn green cloak and cracked glasses, a slightly surprised look to his face. It was Arthur Weasley.

Harry now instantly knew that Ron, Hermione or anyone else hadn't died, that the dream was entirely artificial and that he hadn't woken up since last night. And all he knew besides was that with the panic rising in him so fast, within seconds, he was on his feet and tearing away like a mad cheetah from the crime scene. He supposed he should go tell Ron before anyone else saw first -- but Ron would believe he hadn't done it, right? He didn't know what else to do so that was what he was going to do.

The reality hadn't exactly set in yet and it was perhaps this that let him find Ron without first losing his head. Using the Gate wasn't an option, they made a popping noise when you entered. Harry headed straight for Lodi Hall the hard way from the building he recognized he was in, North Palisades Tower. Arriving at Lodi Hall, Ron was happily chatting with Hermione and Ginny in the common room, completely unaware that his father was...

"Ron," whispered Harry urgently, prodding him hard in the back.

Ron acted like he hadn't heard him or felt Harry's finger. Harry couldn't possibly take no for an answer. He poked Ron harder while Ron tried to make it look like his back had itched and he had a sudden urge to scratch it. This time Harry punched Ron in the back and Ron fell forward off the pouf he'd been sitting on.

"Are -- are you all right, Ron?" Ginny asked curiously while Hermione's face worked into a subtle sort of grimace. She probably knew what was going on.

At the moment when Harry was about to grab Ron's arm and drag him out of the room, Professor McGonagall appeared at the door. She was wearing such a grave expression that there was only one thing she could have been about to say and Harry's heart sunk horribly. Professor McGonagall casted the room a dark look, her face so grave indeed that a few people stopped talking to one another to stare at her, perplexed. Then she turned to look at Ron and Ginny, now wearing an expression not unlike Professor Trelawney's, the one for which she was famous for giving Harry.

Clasping a hand to her chest, she said weakly, "Mr. Weasley, Miss Weasley -- and perhaps you, too, Miss Granger," she added, seeing Hermione's eyes follow Ron and Ginny as they stood up, "please, follow me. I don't know if it's good or bad that Potter isn't here," she whispered silenty to herself, "he's going to have a heart attack when he finds out..."

Curious but feeling the lingering fear that Professor McGonagall was giving off, Ron, Hermione and Ginny swept silently after Professor McGonagall, Harry invisibly at their heels.

When they had arrived at North Palisades Tower, Arthur Weasley's body, unmarked and untouched, had not moved. Ron had broken down into tears along with Hermione (who had also clasped a hand to her mouth) while Ginny's grief seemed to be beyond physical expression.

"Dad," she said in between sobs, bending down and putting a hand on his balding, red hair, "dad, you're not really dead, are you?"

Hermione didn't seem to be able to say anything but her mouth was open in a sort of silent wail.

"Molly has already been notified," Professor McGonagall told them. "I'm leaving it entirely up to her as to what she -- but if you need to see her, she is currently in the Torr Lounge Grand Dining Hall."

Perhaps Professor McGonagall found she couldn't say anymore but she swept silently away and Harry distinctly heard her blow her nose.

Ignoring the presence of Ginny, Harry said, "I was trying to tell you." This was not a problem; either Ginny hadn't noticed Harry's voice or she simply didn't care.

"Dad," breathed Ron faintly.

Harry certainly couldn't bring himself to tell Ron what had happened last night. Only if I really have to, he told himself, hoping this was the right thing to do, only if I have to... But he would certainly have to say what he'd seen when he woke up...

"Ron, there's something else I have to tell you."

"H -- Harry?" said Ginny, not moving anything but her eyes.

Plainly hoping that they weren't going to run into anyone, Harry removed the Invisibility Charm, not taking much notice that he did it with his wand, not Raides. Ginny, as if on instinct, threw herself right at Harry, who, awkwardly, put his arms around her. Hermione did the same for Ron, who wasn't moving.

"Harry, what is it?" Hermione asked, looking extremely anxious over the answer.

"I had one of those strange dreams again," Harry replied, his chin resting on top of Ginny's head, who was silently sobbing into his shoulder. But he felt Ginny stiffen and Ron and Hermione were both staring at him.

Ginny let go at once.

"Strange what?"

"Remember? When I had the Mark of Ancients? All those strange dreams? And that first summer? All the stuff I'd see in plain day while awake?"

"Dream," said Hermione shaking quite a bit more now, "what dream?"

The reality of it starting to set in, Harry backed himself up against a blue, stone wall and sat down against it.

"I followed you to the Bayonne Complex to finish those stupid duels. Then, while it was happening, this Graduate student had just -- just --"

"Just what?"

"Just took off all your heads. I don't know, what d'you want me to say?" he added, noting the looks on their faces and feeling the beginning of his own --

"Well I don't get it! What is this?" Ron bellowed furiously.

"Quiet, Ron, someone will see Harry!" Hermione hissed.

Harry was at least glad that Ginny wasn't asking questions concerning that matter.

"Is -- is someone trying to frame you, maybe?" asked Ginny curiously.

"Frame me? By making me go nuts? I dunno, maybe?" Harry replied miserably. "They're having a good go at it. Someone wants to send me to Azkaban..." he said matter-of-factly.

"Why would someone want to put you in Azkaban?" Ron asked curiously.

Harry fixed with him a furious stare.

"I dunno," Harry began in a curious voice of his own, "maybe they just want to -- to kill me?" he finished melodramatically. "All that's going to happen when they throw me in a cell is I'm going to hear my parents screaming, pass out and never wake up. I'll die of starvation in my sleep," he said furiously.

Harry pulled his knees up to himself and buried his face in them after looking desperately at Hermione.

"Who could be doing it?" asked Hermione as Ron immediately rounded on her.

"That's a stupid question, isn't it? Let's think. Who do we know who's wanted Harry dead since age one?"

"You-Know-Who!" said Ginny triumphantly.

"Oh just say Lord Voldemort," Ron snapped and Ginny flinched at the name.

There was a terrible kind of battle going on inside Harry's head. He knew, very well, that he was having the same sort of dreams he'd had two years ago. At the same time -- and this was the question that had been bugging him since the beginning --

"A better question is -- how?" asked Ron, one hand on his side, the other clutching his furrowed brow. "How's he doing it!" he said frantically.

"I don't know," Harry choked out, his voice trembling as much as his fingers, "but someone better find out before the next one to die is me."

Ron, Hermione and Ginny apparently hadn't been thinking about that and at once, they all bit their lip. They all seemed to forget about Mr. Weasley in light of Harry's troubles, as though they were going to find a way to bring him back to life. But they all knew how unreasonable and pointless that was. Harry had been fearing death for several years now and now with it so close to him, he could almost taste it -- and it was the worst thing he'd ever tasted, worse than an ice cream cone that had been slobbered over by Dudley first.

It wasn't until the next day that the rumors began to spread.

"I don't see how, really..."

"But, he's at Hogwarts, isn't he? I mean..."

"Everyone from Sagtikos is saying he's just as much a Dark wizard as You-Know-Who. I'm telling you, it's the staff."

Whispers had been following Harry ever since he'd Disapparated back to Hayden's. Having had spent the rest of yesterday locked up in Gryffindor Tower, half expecting Voldemort to come, invisible, bursting into either school and stab him with a knife, he didn't expect this nor was it very welcome. He hung his head low, his eyes darting from whisper to whisper as though they could see him and were giving him looks of deepest loathing. Most of the voices were people he didn't recognize, people from Hayden's. Harry figured that everyone from Hogwarts had gotten tired of talking about him in the corridors...

"He lent the Weasley kids money to come here and then he gets a letter from the Minister of Magic saying he can't come. He demanded the Weasley's pay him back --"

"Isn't he usually so nice, though?"

"-- and he's cracked, I'd say, finally. They haven't payed him back. Come on, didn't you hear about those loads of creatures that were found dead by the Whitewonder Tower Fire Turret? Who else could have killed that many creatures? No one but a really powerful, really Dark wizard," concluded a really tall student wearing black robes and a white cloak who looked as though he, himself, wanted a chance with a manticore.

By nightfall, it didn't seem like anyone had any doubts that Harry had killed someone yet again -- except for a few people in Lodi Hall and, thankfully, everyone in Gryffindor.

The Weasleys all decided they ought to hold a service for Mr. Weasley. There was lots of hugging and crying, the crying done by Ginny and the hugging done by Hermione. Percy Weasley was looking livid, as though, to Harry's horror, he would personally kill Harry if he saw him. Even Ron's oldest brothers, Bill and Charlie, were avoiding him.

"Percy's upset -- though he doesn't look it sometimes," Ron explained to Harry as they were standing next to each other, Mrs. Weasley laying flowers on the ground which were drooping sadly, too. "He's losing it over dad. Hermione, Ginny and I have been trying to convince him you wouldn't lay a finger on dad but," Ron went on, looking extremely uneasy over his brother, "he -- just -- doesn't want to believe us. I dunno, Percy's been getting deeper into work. He's been sending owls ever since we got here, telling us how bad things are at the office and now, with dad... he's just going to have a ton more work."

"I wouldn't go near him, Harry, if I were you," Hermione advised.

Harry always knew Percy to be very into his work but never though he lacked the sense to see something that was plainly obvious, Harry thought -- that he'd never kill someone!

Ginny sniffed behind Harry. He half wanted to make himself visible again; Ginny's warmth was slightly comforting last night. Although it wasn't Cho, it was something. His attitude toward Ginny had seemingly changed overnight. Perhaps it was sorrow?

Percy hadn't said a single word the entire time, his glasses askew in anger and his brand-new maroon robes not straight. With a forced -- and it was hard to tell it was forced because it looked very convincing -- comforting look at his sister and five brothers and a pop, he Disapparated and to where, Harry couldn't give three fake wands in a tea cozy.

Ron and Hermione had explained the entire situation with Harry being in New York to Ginny though they failed to mention the ancient forbidden spell that Harry had used to make sure he wouldn't get caught. This lack of information led to odd questions but they assured Ginny that Harry "has it covered." On top of that, not only did people believe Harry to have killed Mr. Weasley but they were also certain that he was creeping around the halls of Hayden's unseen, so sure, in fact, that people were calling his name, expecting him to answer.

To Harry's relief, there was no big deal made about Liam's death. He and Raides had supposed that the school wanted it hushed up that a vampire had been killed. No one seemed to care, let alone notice. Not being from a wizarding family, Harry supposed this was his ignorance showing but it still struck him as odd. Word got around the school that someone else besides Mr. Weasley had died that same day. Harry, already too happy to hear that no one was making a big deal out of it, didn't care to confirm it was Liam. It had to be. If it was anyone else, there would be an uproar. But it was confirmed anyway with a notice posted in each of the five Halls. Harry only read the first sentence before feeling sick and turning away.

We all mourn the loss of a fellow student, Liam Lamia of Sagtikos.

The trip to Laurence Patrick Hayden's Manhattan School of Wizardry ended on a somber note, one day before it was supposed to. Everyone was blaming Harry for this but Harry didn't care, he was even glad of it. While people were muttering darkly about him, everyone was feeling sorry for Ron and Ginny, both of whom seemed to have their grief set in full effect. Ginny had gone off eating like Harry had done so many times ("Eat something," wheedled Hermione, "Ginny, please") and Ron had stopped talking to most everyone, including Hermione.

Dinner the night before they were to leave was a quiet event. Hermione having had lost the last duel in under thirty seconds -- and Harry couldn't blame her -- there was no big deal made of that either. All students were to have breakfast the next morning in the Torr Lounge Grand Dining Hall then all Hogwarts students would take the Gate back to the castle. No one was talking very much. Mr. Weasley's death seemed to have struck a chord with everyone, Hogwarts student or not... Although Harry had a strong suspicion it was more because they feared Harry would kill them next rather than them feeling sorry for the Weasleys.

This time, Harry lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling of the top of the Lodi Hall Dormitory. Hermione had been letting Harry in ever since that night. It didn't look as though Ron would be doing much of anything since then. Sitting alone in the corner of the dormitory evening after evening with Ginny, Harry, for a few moments, felt his own troubles ebb away in his sorrow for them. But this didn't last long, perhaps no more than hour's worth of staring fixed, clutching the bed sheets, a ringing silence in his ears.

Turning over, Harry almost wished the dream had been real. In that case, he'd at least not be worrying over the Mark of Ancients... which I shouldn't have to be! Harry thought furiously. It's over, it's gone, it's never coming back. But then, why is it still -- still (he didn't want to use the word haunting, that made it sound like he was really in trouble)...

He didn't think he'd ever sleep that night, his ears working extra hard to pick up every rustle of the wind outside, every breath from Raides, every time her scarlet tail moved across the carpeted floor. And when he went to turn over to stare at his night table instead, it seemed so loud that it would wake someone up and they would find him lying there.

His eyes had fallen on something that he'd been holding onto more of in the past few days than the image of being in Godric's Hollow, perfectly safe, with two people. Golden, glittering and guilt-inspiring, it was the Order of Merlin plaque. Dumbledore's words came floating out of the back of his head.

"Whenever you are feeling down, Harry, I want you to hold it, tight, so that you never have to feel down again. It would be great if everyone had one, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it be great if everyone had something to call their own Order of Merlin necklace?"

A hand half way between the edge of the bed and the night table, Harry hesitated as the image of Hermione's beaming face swam before him on the night Cornelius Fudge had called his name out to get the necklace. Without even holding it, he felt the guilt slowly swelling inside him like a balloon. Pulling his hand back after snatching it, twirling it between his slightly trembling fingers, there was no calming sensation, nothing to make him feel any less anxiety, nothing to help him go to sleep when he so very much wanted to.

There didn't seem to be any alternative. The thing that did make him fall asleep was a spell casted on him with Raides in his hand. The Staff of Cybele falling to the floor as a great golden and scarlet lion, Harry lay sprawled on the bed, one hand dangling off the edge, in a deep state of worry, not sleep. 


	40. The Haunting Dream

Chapter 40: THE HAUNTING DREAM

"Wake up, Harry. C'mon. Get up."

Hermione's voice was the first thing Harry heard when he was -- back at Hogwarts?

Harry sprang up in his four-poster atop Gryffindor Tower. Suddenly wide awake, Hermione was peering at him with his glasses in her hands. He snatched them from her and put them on, the better to notice the expression she was wearing. She wasn't giving him a look that suggested someone else had died but she wasn't smiling, either. His first question was answered by her before he'd gotten a word out.

"Dumbledore forced us to cough up the entire story," she admitted. "No one knew you were there but Dumbledore started to believe some of the rumors and, well, let's face it, it was no secret that Ron and I would know if they were true."

Harry's stomach dropped out of him.

"He knows about Animus Speculum?" he asked, biting his lip.

Hermione nodded gravely.

"Where's Ron?"

"I saw him at breakfast. He wasn't looking so good and then he went off with Ginny somewhere."

"And -- how exactly did I get here?"

Harry now got out of bed, seeing that all of the things he'd taken out of his trunk from Hogwarts and had put in drawers in Lodi Hall were now back at Hogwarts. Sitting on top of the table next to his bed were all his quills and slips of parchment, one with handwriting he distinctly recognized as Cho's. Not knowing whether Hermione had seen it yet, he hastily stuffed it in the drawer.

"Dumbledore Stunned you in your sleep" -- Harry frowned -- "and brought you back here. He didn't tell us why he didn't just ask you quietly," she said quickly, seeing Harry ready to open his mouth. "But he's furious, Harry and please, please promise me you won't do anything stupid again?"

Harry longed to throw her a diatribe about doing stupid things, about how often those stupid things had gotten him into trouble and how he still found himself doing stupid things though he had no idea why. Upon reflection of what good it would do, he restrained himself.

"Voldemort's trying dearly hard to do whatever he wants to do --"

"Get me sent to Azkaban or have my soul sucked out by a dementor," Harry muttered.

"-- to kill you, send you to Azkaban so he can kill you there, whatever" -- Hermione was sounding really frantic now -- "and Dumbledore's trying his best to stop whatever it is from happening. You already know the only reason you're still in school, Harry," she continued in such a sharp tone she would have made a great substitute teacher for Professor McGonagall in Harry's opinion, "is because they don't want you outside where you'll be killed in two seconds."

Harry knew this very well, but he didn't say anything. Once before had he suspected that Hermione and Ron had rehearsed a conversation while he'd been asleep...

"Voldemort's trying his very best to frame you for all of this, you know that," she proclaimed, a tear leaking out from under her eyes, "if it isn't already obvious to you! And you just can't give him a chance! More people are going to die before the year's up, Harry and -- and I don't want you to be one of them!"

"What are you so worried about?" Harry snapped.

"I'm worried about you!" cried Hermione.

And then, without warning, she positively flung her arms around him. Harry shrugged her off.

"You're doing it again," said Hermione in a small voice.

"Doing what?" said Harry, truthfully not knowing.

"No one know's what's going on --" Hermione said and to Harry it sounded like the beginning of another speech.

"Except Voldemort," he again muttered, now putting on a cloak.

"-- and everyone agrees with me that you should just -- just let whatever happens happen and stay out of it."

"And let everyone get killed," said Harry flatly, "that's your plan, is it? And who is everyone?"

"Everyone!" Hermione cried, helping herself to a tissue. "Professor McGonagall, Figg, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Parvati, Lavender -- and Dumbledore!"

Again, Harry didn't say anything. Hermione just didn't seem to understand. Should he tell her about Ron killing Liam and the Memory Charm he'd placed Ron under? She didn't seem to understand how it felt to be called a murderer wherever you walked, how it felt to wake up unexpectedly during the night in a cold sweat, shaking, reliving a frightening murder, just as scared about someone hearing you scream as you were about that curse hitting you. She didn't know how unsettling it was to be around Raides and how she reacted in many a situation, almost happy, cheerful, when someone died. Raides had gotten him out of many tight situations but he didn't like it. And he had the distinct feeling things were going to get a lot worse before they were going to get any better.

"Cho had sent you letters -- but I didn't read them -- and Dumbledore wants you to dispell your clone. He also wants to see you later. And eat something, Harry!" she said, eyes still tearing, looking at his back.

Harry was now in the portrait hole, Raides in hand, leaving Gryffindor Tower.

"I'm not hungry," he lied.

Not even paying attention to where he was going, Harry ended up in the exact spot where his clone was. It was looking ready to be dispelled, sitting on the bottom stair of the marble staircase in the entrance hall. With a wave of Raides and a puff of smoke, the clone had vanished. Harry certainly expected some new memories and indeed, he got them. Some of them were of letters Cho had written, others still were about things that had been said over breakfast, lunch and dinner in the Great Hall but the one that made him wish he was still upstairs being yelled at by Hermione was pretty bad.

It was a dream. One of those dreams involving Voldemort. And people he had at Hogwarts doing his work for him.

"You weren't supposed to kill that one," rang Voldemort's high, cold voice in Harry's head and he suddenly stood rigid in the entrance hall, hearing it play out. "But, good job... and clean, too..."

"Thank you, my Lord. The one I was supposed to kill had gotten away and I couldn't possibly find him. I had to take an easy one so I could get away with my life."

Harry didn't recognize the second voice at all. It had to be a new Death Eater, a woman.

"Very well, then. Very --"

But the dream ended very suddenly, leaving Harry to clutch the railing for support. Not feeling hungry at all now, he ran flat-out and stopped dead in front of the ugly stone gargoyle that prevented passage into Dumbledore's office. Whether Dumbledore expected this or not, Harry didn't know but he was standing there, his long, silver beard gleaming in the sunlight, peering at Harry out of his half-moon spectacles with the most disappointed face Harry had ever seen him wear. Again, Harry wished he was still upstairs being yelled at by Hermione.

Neither of them said anything aside from Dumbledore giving the password to the stone gargoyle. They then walked silently up the spiraling staircase to Dumbledore's study. Dumbledore himself sat in his chair and beckoned Harry to sit opposite him. Then he said simply, "Why?"

At first, Harry felt like telling him everying that was bothering him. About Fudge's attitude towards him, his disgust towards Fudge for it, everyone even at Hayden's calling him a murderer, the incident with Liam, Ron and Hermione not speaking to him (well, Hermione was speaking to him now but it was only to stop him risking his life)... The old dream, the new dream, Raides, the Mark of Ancients, Mr. Weasley...

Quite unexpectedly, it all became tangled up in his head and instead what came out took even him by surprise. It wasn't something he'd normally say to Dumbledore.

"You've spoken to Hermione, haven't you?" said Harry quietly in a you're-all-plotting-against-me sort of voice. "She's telling me you all think Voldemort's trying to pin this on me."

"And he's doing a good job of it, am I wrong?" replied Dumbledore in a would-be calm voice except Harry saw his beard twitch as though his lip was slightly curled in anger. "Miss Granger tells me you're having the unsettling dreams --"

"Unsettling isn't the word for it," said Harry loudly.

"-- you had under the influence of the Mark of Ancients. We don't understand this, Harry --"

"No one seems to," Harry commented grimly.

"-- but we're trying."

"Trying," said Harry doubtfully.

"What do you have in mind, then?" Dumbledore asked Harry. "Two people dead. Do you want to do something? What can you do?"

A sort of explosion took place in Harry's insides, frying them to cinders. All he knew was that it was too much for him to take, Voldemort walking free, torturing, murdering, while he, Harry, was locked up in Hogwarts being treated not much better than Voldemort himself.

"I CAN'T TAKE IT! I DON'T WANT TO JUST SIT HERE WHILE EVERYONE GETS KILLED BY SOME DARK WIZARD --"

"AND WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU PLAN TO DO, MR. POTTER?" Dumbledore bellowed.

Harry had never heard Dumbledore yell so loudly and it had been a long time since he referred to Harry as Mr. Potter. However, Harry was too angry to stop now. Let Dumbledore yell, let him even curse Harry. He almost wanted him to so he could curse him back with Raides.

"Arthur Weasley -- dead," stated Harry frantically. "Lucius Malfoy -- also dead. Who's next, Sirius? You? Me? Karkaroff?" Harry walked straight up to Dumbledore's desk who ever so slightly recoiled and slammed two closed fists down on it in anger. Then he said coldly, "Voldemort's just randomly killing until enough people believe I did it, and then what?"

"Harry, calm yourself."

Harry wasn't listening.

"I'm not going to Azkaban," he assured Dumbledore though he was shaking all the same.

Dumbledore now offered a few words of comfort.

"Lucius was killed in Hogsmeade. Arthur was killed in New York. You will notice, Harry, that neither of these took place within the walls of Hogwarts. I assure you, with the Ancient Anti-Disapparation Charm on the castle, they stand no chance of killing anyone within these walls which is, I'll state again, the only reason you have not been expelled this year. You've heard this many times, Harry and I'll say it again. You're only here because we care more about your life than a bag of magic tricks. I don't want you putting yourself in danger; you seem to have a knack for this."

Harry stopped staring at Dumbledore and, after taking a seat, instead stared at his knees. His insides churned horribly and he dropped his death gaze.

"Nothing," said Dumbledore firmly, "is getting in these castle walls without my permission. This includes Lord Voldemort. Voldemort never dared set foot in this school since he graduated and I swear for as long as I live, he will not."

Here, Dumbledore actually smiled. Harry smiled back weakly. Just seven years ago, Harry would have given anything to have someone actually care for him. A year later, he'd found out what it was like to have such a thing when he'd spend part of his summer vacation at Ron's house. Now, he didn't know what he wanted. Cho's letters demanding he stay out of trouble, Hermione pleading with him, all these thoughts... feelings... They were confusing.

There was a pause while Dumbledore seemingly gave Harry ample time to brood on his thoughts before he asked, "Before you go, is there anything else you'd like to say?"

Yes, thought Harry quickly. The dream he'd gotten from his clone.

"I had one of those crazy dreams again," Harry explained which made Dumbledore lean back in his chair, looking generally concerned.

"Go on," he prompted Harry.

"Well, er, my clone had it. There was only one person besides Voldemort. Voldemort said that whoever was with him wasn't supposed to kill whoever he did -- he didn't say who. The one he was supposed to kill got away and that he killed that other one instead."

Harry stopped talking, waiting for Dumbledore to respond; he didn't respond right away.

"I see," he said in an off-hand voice. "And?"

"But Voldemort was happy anyway... and, of course, the rest's all going to go as planned," said Harry grimly.

There was a pause. Dumbledore's silver mustache twitched.

"I cannot deny, Harry, that I am concerned," Dumbledore informed Harry like he expected Voldemort to come crashing in and kill the both of them.

"Ron and Hermione seem to think that he's trying to pin these on me."

"Yes, it does seem that way, doesn't it --"

"But you can vouch for me, can't you?" Harry interrupted, a desperate look on his face now.

Dumbledore sighed gravely and Harry sat back, put out, that look not leaving him.

"I've told you before, I've told you a thousand times. I cannot make other men see truth --"

"-- but --"

"-- and, I daresay, you do not look particularly innocent."

Dumbledore was peering at him over the tops of his half-moon spectacles like Harry was a disobedient son and Harry fell silent at once. Harry dared not tell him about the Hand of Glory. That wouldn't come back to get him, would it? Yes, Harry assured himself right away, it would. At this, Harry tried not to look too guilty, knowing Dumbledore would see straight through it like he always did.

And how could that have happened? Harry had gone from being fuming mad, to desperate to feeling horribly guilty in just a manner of minutes. More interesting, perhaps was why hadn't his clone told Dumbledore about the dream? Maybe -- maybe he wanted the real Harry to talk to Dumbledore about this.

There was another pause in which Fawkes, resting on his perch by the door, let out a few notes of phoenix song as he cleansed his feathers. Making Harry feel slightly better, this must have shown on his face because after he said "No," --

"You had better get back to Gryffindor Tower," suggested Dumbledore. "Miss Granger was quite the hysterical one this morning and if I'm not mistaken, she'll be personally watching guard on you."

His eyes were twinkling and he chose to ignore Harry's delayed response which Harry was grateful for.

"I'm sorry to say it is the will of the majority of the school staff to remove three hundred points from Gryffindor." Harry wanted to be angry for this but found that he couldn't. "I daresay, this year will end, regardless, with Gryffindor in the lead. Oh, and Miss Quirrell will be joining us shortly," he added as Harry went down the spiraling stairs.

Harry's mind was racing. He had just been caught in another huge deception. What was going to happen to him? Was Dumbledore going to eventually crack and put Harry on trial? Or simply expel him from Hogwarts outright and let Voldemort get him? Where would he sleep? The Dursleys wouldn't take him in, he didn't think they'd even acknowledge his existence anymore... Perhaps he could kip at Arabella Figg's... Would she even let him? Hiding at wherever Sirius was sounded like a good idea as well. Or would Sirius disown him? Harry sure hoped not... Why do crazy thoughts always come to you when you're feeling so panicky? Harry thought furiously.

Before long, he found himself in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady. Harry had passed Ron on the way, who was not looking happy at all and merely grunted to show he had seen Harry. He couldn't blame himself yet but the guilt was starting to creep up on him...

The rest of the day passed in somewhat of a blur. When it seemed like it was time for bed, Harry was dragged right to the library by Hermione and a very glum looking Ron to spend a good hour on the Explicatrix. Their search, to Harry's great not-surprise, had yielded nothing as usual. Harry was used to this; he was starting to believe the entry in Amazing Artifacts saying that the Explicatrix doesn't exist ("But it's in your hand, Harry," said Hermione, glaring at him).

Classes were to start again the next day. Both Ron and Ginny had been, in Harry's opinion, rightfully excused from attending any of their classes that day which neither of them said they were going to. Personally, Harry didn't think Ginny would ever be the same; she spent the greater part of the past several days sitting in the common room by herself, speaking only when spoken to. Everyone thought Ron would try to cheer her up but Ron wasn't much better off. It was hitting them very hard... losing their dad...

Breakfast wasn't a boring affair that morning either, though it was far from being a pleasant one as well. It was an innocent looking screech owl carrying a black envelope that did it. Soaring into the Great Hall among the chatting crowd, it made its way over to the Slytherin table. Harry couldn't believe his eyes. Millicent Bulstrode, a rather heavy-set girl with a face only a mother could love, the letter in her hand, went dashing out of the Great Hall, her face in her other hand. Everyone watched her dash out and Harry strongly suspected she was crying.

"What was that all about?" asked Hermione, though no one had any idea... yet.

"Didn't that happen once before?" asked Harry, staring but he then turned quickly to Hermione to see that she had indeed gone white. A groan of understanding spread between he and Hermione.

"Millicent's parents too?" Harry asked Hermione. "But -- she's Slytherin!"

Just then, another screech owl flew in carrying Hermione's copy of the Daily Prophet.

"See if there's anything in it about this," said Harry impatiently, also thinking of what Voldemort could possibly be up to this time.

"I am, I am," said Hermione, distracted by flipping through page after page.

After some thirty pages of Neville, Harry and Ginny looking on (Ron wasn't very interested) and Parvati, Lavender, Seamus and Dean crowding around, bits of toast in their mouths, Hermione stopped. Her face fell as she read aloud.

"Late last night, Muggle authorities found a man with silver-blond hair, which quickly got covered by his hood, wearing a black cloak' -- Lucius Malfoy," Hermione commented darkly.

"Lucius is dead, Hermione," Ron reminded her, abandoning his porridge just long enough before he turned slightly white and went back to it.

"Don't remind me," said Harry, staring some place to the right of his scrambled eggs.

"-- 'was found fleeing the Bulstrode manor' --"

"That cow has a manor too?" Ron burst out angrily which made all their heads snap up at him. "Sorry," he said sheepishly.

Hermone shot a nervous look at Harry, who glanced back indifferently, and went on.

"-- 'this morning. Mr. and Mrs. Bulstrode were both found dead in the kitchen, untouched and unmarked, which leaves only one thing as the cause of death: one of the three Unforgivable Curses. The Minister of Magic refuses to comment on the rumors of several Muggle bodies being pulled from the Bulstrode's separate garage, also dead' -- wait a minute, who wrote this crap?" she interrupted herself. As she came across a name, a smile of savage triumph spread a cross her face. "Rita Skeeter. And listen to this: 'You-Know-Who's sign, the Dark Mark, was over the scene as Paul Weasley' --"

"Paul?" Ron hissed. "I'll kill her! Someone needs to tell her to think before she writes!" Harry thought this was asking rather a lot. He also thought of how Ron had killed Liam. This made him nervous. "Spill the beans on her, Hermione!"

"Don't worry," Hermione assured Ron.

"What beans?" asked Dean, his toast in his hand.

Hermione smiled again.

"Remember during the last Triwizard Tournament? All those interviews she was getting off the Slytherins? The stories? And how she was supposed to be banned from the grounds? Well, I found out how!" Here, Parvati gave a very audible "ooh" of anger while Lavender stared blankly, waiting. "Oh, you'll find out," said Hermione in a very superior voice.

"But, how can she not care?" Harry thought aloud slowly, forgetting about Lucius in an instant, jerking his head up at Hermione now.

Hermione's face became screwed up in thought.

"Unless she," Hermione began slowly -- and then she let out an even louder and more threatening "ooh" of anger than Parvati, "unless she already -- oh I'll get her. Come on, we're sending the Ministry of Magic's Office of Animagi an owl."

And with that, all of the Gryffindor seventh years left for the Owlery. Their toast lay forgotten.

What with Rita Skeeter, Arthur Weasley and Liam, Harry was glad to start classes again to take it all off his mind. Far removed from doing that, however, the looks, stares and accusing finger-pointing from his classmates, especially the Slytherins who were wholly convinced that Harry had killed Lucius, made him uptight and irritable. Add in the three hundred points he lost for Gryffindor and for a few moments in the coming days he thought about giving Voldemort a shovel to get on with it.

Thinking it would do nothing, Harry didn't bother pressing the matter, asking people whether they thought he would really kill Arthur Weasley but the rumor persisted: "He didn't pay Potter back, all those galleons. He wanted his revenge, he got it. Potter must enjoy killing by now. I wonder who's next?"

Gryffindors still believe me, Harry kept repeating to himself, they still think -- or rather, know -- I'm innocent...

Hermione's and Dumbledore's speech had done one thing. Wherever Harry went, so did Raides. Out to the greenhouses for Herbology or up into the towers for Astronomy and Divination, Raides went, however grudingly. She didn't like going to Potions with Harry, being around Professor Arabella, because she said she could smell the cats on her robes. Harry wondered how the smell of cat could linger on clothing for so long; she hadn't seen her cats since she left her house.

But Raides' presence did have another marked effect. Whether it was her presence, or for some strange reason Professor McGonagall was intimidated by Raides, Harry couldn't tell, but she was being all around much nicer to everyone. It seemed that her way of dealing with stress these days was to be extra strict and sometimes gliding around like a Leithfold, a tropical creature resembling a floating black cloak. Hagrid had talked about this creature in class but not even he dared to show it to them. It was to be on their N.E.W.T.s, which Harry still dreaded, and that was the last they'd ever hear of it.

"The Patronus is the on'y spell that can repel it, and yeh never have to hear me talk about it again," Hagrid had said, giving an involuntary shudder.

Professor Trelawney went right back to predicting Harry's death on Monday, which he found increasingly annoying. All through class that second Monday back, Ron had been staring at his rune, Hagaliz, while Harry was avoiding looking up what Algiz meant; Professor Trelawney had been hinting that someone with dark hair would be able to find out what was coming. Harry was paired with Neville Longbottom while Ron, Dean Thomas.

"But I don't want to know what's coming," Harry told Ron, who wasn't listening.

"Say something?" said Ron absentmindedly.

Harry turned to Neville who said to him, "He's been like that all period."

Harry, biting his lip, turned to page three hundred and sixty in Runes as Limns.

"Hagalaz stands for sudden loss, a great ordeal, disaster, testing and drastic change," he read. "Do not shy away from the challenge life is presenting; it is merely a test that you will and should overcome. It will make you better, stronger, more wise. Do not fear the test, embrace it for you will conquer it. If it conquers you, you will miss out. The storm of change may seem daunting but once the clouds pass, the sun will shine right through."

Ron must have been listening because he stood right up, knocking his chair down, stuffed his books in his bag and shouted, "Embrace it, yeah! I'm going to become a whole lot stronger living out my dad's death! Sudden loss and drastic change," he muttered, "I'll give you sudden loss and drastic change."

He pulled open the hatch, climbed down the ladder and was gone.

The class was staring at the ladder where Ron was just a second ago. It was Parvati who spoke first.

"Wow, I've never seen him react like that."

Later that night, Ron had not come to dinner and was sitting alone by the fire in the common room with a very glum looking Ginny who was at least talking to people.

"I think she's doing better than he is," Parvati told Harry quietly as he just came back from dinner. "My God, Padma's not even in Gryffindor and she's concerned over him. I wonder what Hermione's going through? And speaking of which -- er -- how are you feeling these days?" she asked cautiously.

"Oh just peechy," Harry replied testily. He picked up his quill to get started on homework, pulled a face and imitated Malfoy. "'Hello, Potter. Kill any more people's fathers lately?' I was so mad at him I snapped my phoenix feather quill in half," he said as he absently squeezed on his owl feather quill between two fingers -- and it snapped in two pieces. Letting out a groan like an angry troll, he slammed his book shut. "I'm never going to finish all my homework and this stupid term-long paper on Dark arts!"

"You're still doing that?"

"YES!" Harry snapped -- just like the quill in his hand again which was now in four pieces. "That's two quills in two days," he muttered darkly.

There was a pause, and then, "Did you --" Padma began timidly.

"NO!" Harry shouted, uncomfortably aware of everyone staring at him.

Looking around at all of the faces, not one of them, he saw, didn't look concerned or downright scared. He threw the bits of his quill into the fire, slung his bag over his back and marched up the spiral stairs to his four-poster, everyone looking uncertainly after him -- except Ron.

Earlier that day, Dumbledore asked Harry to hang around in the entrance hall fifteen minutes before dinner on Friday and it must have been this that told Harry it was Hermione whose footsteps were coming up the stairs to him.

"You're not supposed to be up here," said Harry accusingly as she approached him.

"How'd you know it was me?" she asked gently, breaking a small smile -- and this didn't smooth over well with Harry.

"Guess," he said simply.

He then pulled open the drawer on his bedside cabinet to find a quill that wasn't broken; there was only one left. His books spread out over his bed and trying to ignore Hermione, he continued his essay for Professor Sinistra on Astronomy.

"Look, I know what you're --"

"No you don't," snapped Harry dismissively. "And didn't we have this conversation before?"

"Why are you being so difficult!" said Hermione, all of a sudden frantic. "This isn't you!"

Something in Harry told him she was right... but he wasn't about to tell her that.

"I have work to do, go back to the common room."

Hermione ran over to Harry, a pleading look on her face. She pulled the quill out of his hand, put his book on the end of his bed, put her hands on his face and turned his head to look at her.

"Something's not right, Harry, I know it, you know it, Ron knows it, Dumbledore's gonna know it soon enough. It's like that summer three years ago when you were all -- all --"

"All what?" Harry demanded, pushing Hermione's hands away, taking his book and quill back.

"All crazy!"

"Oh, so now I'm crazy --"

"You weren't yourself, Harry! You were all strange and spontaneous and you were scaring all of us --"

"Am I scaring you now?"

For a moment, Hermione looked straight into Harry's eyes and then shouted, "Yes! -- Harry just admit it's happening again! Please? Soon you'll be doing all that strange stuff again, on the floor crying your eyes out, your scar hurting for no apparent reason -- this isn't you! You weren't yourself then and you're not yourself now!" she went on while Harry stayed silent... but now he had something to say. He let her finish first, though. "All the things you said, you weren't -- you were rash, Harry, and scary! You nearly got yourself killed! You acted like a completely different person!"

"How d'you know what I'm like?" he asked as if they had never seen each other before.

"Because I've known you FOR -- SEVEN -- YEARS!" Hermione bellowed fiercely. "That year you weren't yourself in the slightest bit! You changed completely under -- under --"

She was having trouble getting the words out and while this much was obvious, the rest wasn't. Again, he knew she was right. When were the only times he'd ever been really, really angry? Sure, he broke Snape's nose last year, but... not since...

"So are we talking about the Mark of Ancients again?"

Standing defiantly like a proud soldier next to Harry who was still sitting in bed, a pleading look in her eye, she went all timid and said, "Harry, I know it was removed but, don't you think -- that, maybe, just maybe, it found a --"

"IT'S GONE!" Harry roared, standing up to his full and considerable-over-Hermione height. She backed away. "THREE PEOPLE DIED ON ME THIS YEAR, HERMIONE, AND WE ALL HAVE GOOD REASON TO BELIEVE THERE'S GONNA BE MORE!"

Tears were silently beginning to stream down Hermione's face.

"Please, Harry, you were saying things I know you'd never say, and doing things and I just don't want a repeat of that! None of us do! And you -- and you --"

"Yes, I nearly got myself killed, you already said that. Are you done now?" he asked her as if they'd done nothing more than finish a session of studying. "I've got homework to do."

Hermione made a motion with her hands as if to hug him out of extreme worry but thought better of it at the look on his face and instead turned on her heel and walked out, crying freely -- and loudly, in Harry's opinion.

At this point, Harry would have gone back to working and no sooner had he written a period than Ron came up.

"Hey," he began angrily, "what did --"

"Nice to see you too, Ron," said Harry, looking up.

"-- you say to Hermione?"

Harry noticed that Ron was quite mad but this didn't stop from him saying, "I don't know. Why don't you ask her?"

"She came to me crying her eyes out! Now she's with Parvati and Lavender and they're having a job at calming her down!" Had he not been so angry, Harry would have been happy to hear that Ron and Hermione were getting on so well together -- but he wasn't. "What -- did -- you -- say?" Ron demanded fiercely.

"And what did she have to say." It wasn't a question.

Ron stood there, in the middle of the dormitory's door, stumbling over words but finally managed to come out with, "She seems to think that the Mark of Ancients is back!"

"Oh, so you don't believe it either, then," said Harry, trying for dear life to sound calm just to upset Ron, looking back down at his paper now.

"LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M YELLING AT YOU!" Ron screamed which Harry thought was very funny.

But Ron didn't. Next thing Harry knew, Ron was walking towards him, his hand outstretched. Harry was waiting for a punch, but he didn't get it. Instead, Ron snatched the quill out of his hand, snapped it in half and poured the ink bottle right on Harry's head.

"Now you've got no quills left," said Ron.

His hair dripping with black ink and fuming, Harry wasn't sure what made him do it. All he knew was that he was suddenly extremely angry, angrier than he'd just seen Ron act. His hand balled up into a fist seemingly all on its own but he was fully aware of directing it towards Ron's large, freckled nose.

This seemed to be Ron's breaking point because, his nose bleeding, he threw an ink bottle right at Harry who dodged it and, Harry, standing up, got a fist in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Before he could move, he felt Ron's other fist hit him hard on the nose.

Winded and his own nose bleeding freely as well, Harry kicked Ron in the stomach to knock him back. He then stood up, pulled his fist back as far as possible and, ignoring the look of abject terror on Ron's face, threw it forward with all of the force inside of him.

Harry must have underestimated his own strength, he thought, because he heard a crack which he guessed was Ron's nose breaking and the force of his punch had Ron up against the opposite wall. Ron ran, as fast as he could and Harry finally noticed what was so scary: it was his fist. It had grown at least three times normal size but was now shrinking back to normal.

He stood frozen, his heart sinking horribly, a block of cement the size of his overgrown fist resting inside his stomach. That had only happened once before, when he had...

Harry had a very strange dream that night. He had a funny feeling he'd had something similar before because it took place down in an underground pit. Before him stood a dementor, Voldemort a strangely familiar rope ladder and -- James Potter.

Nothing was moving except the arms of Harry's father which were frantically waving him over. Harry didn't need to think long, his knees weak, thanks to the dementor's presence, everything strangely blurry, to know where he wanted to go. A weak smile now across his face, Harry didn't walk, he ran, but as he ran it seemed to become farther and farther away.

Harry felt a rising panic. At first it seemed to be so very close, then a few feet, then it looked like ten feet, several meters... Now he was running as fast as his rubbery legs and clouded-up head would let him, the dementor's aura of cold and dark thoughts overcoming him. He needed to escape, he had to, but the obvious made him feel distinctly sick: the closer he thought he was getting, the farther away he really was.

Harry turned around to see what had become of the dementor and Voldemort or at least where they had gone. What he saw made him stumble backwards and fall. Both of them had grown tremendously in size, at least fives times the height Harry first saw them as. As his eyes darted back towards the rope ladder and his father, whose arms were still flailing, there appeared to be only one hope left: the rope ladder. As he uncertainly edged toward the ladder, James Potter's arms stopped moving and he started yelling. And his words tore viciously at Harry's heart.

"Harry!" he cried desperately. "Harry, where are you going? Come and get me! Don't leave me down here!"

Harry stopped dead, staring longingly at the picture of his father who seemed to be haunting his son's dreams a lot lately. He didn't want to leave him down there! The look on his face... those words... But how was Harry going to get to him when the space just seemed to get bigger and bigger? He wanted to, he had to, but what could he do?

He had been waiting too long. Harry felt a cold, clammy rotting hand on his shoulder and it was this that made him wake up with a start in a cold sweat. 


	41. The Mystery Girl Again

Chapter 41: THE MYSTERY GIRL AGAIN

He sat bolt upright and frantically glanced around the room like Voldemort or the dementor was going to pop in and kill him any second. But he was safe. There wasn't a dementor and they certainly wouldn't be allowed in Hogwarts ever again after what happened in Harry's fourth year. Voldemort wasn't going to gain access to Hogwarts that easily and this much Harry liked. What he didn't like was that, as much as the dementor and Voldemort wasn't near him, neither was his dad...

His chest heaving, he tried to calm himself down by taking deep breaths. It was almost as bad as that other dream. He wasn't going to see his dad again, this much he knew and the dream horribly reminded him of it.

Harry pulled the curtains back on his four-post bed, flipped his legs over to the side and planted his hands next to him, gripping the mattress tighter than was necessary, as if he was going to pass out if he didn't. After having looked at his feet for a minute, slowly calming down, he looked up again, looking around at the untroubled dreams of Seamus, Neville and Dean. Ron, clearly, was reliving something because he was muttering quietly to himself and every now and then he'd turn over.

He watched and watched and then, after a few minutes, Ron, too sat bolt upright, his chest heaving as well.

"Good morning, Ron," said Harry casually, as though you frequently see your friends wake up from nightmares.

Ron turned both bleary eyes towards him. He looked grumpy.

"What are you doing up?" Ron asked, a slight scowl to his weak forehead.

"Same thing you're doing up. Must have had a bad one. You were talking in your sleep and turning over."

"What's it to you?" Ron replied nastily, slumping back onto his pillows after sighing -- but the sigh was over the dream, Harry knew, not at Harry himself. "Wait a minute, I'm not supposed to be talking to you. Did someone say something?"

Harry didn't reply. He stood up, walked over to the water jug, filled up a glass and sat back down on the side of his bed, staring out the window at the not-soothing night sky.

"Drink some water," said Harry after listening to Ron's heavy breathing for a good few minutes, "it'll help."

Ron was reluctant at taking any advice from him, but he broke down after another minute and did so, though grudgingly. He seemed angry to find out that it did work. There was a few moments silence and then Ron had fallen back to sleep.

Harry put his glass down on his bedside cabinet and, wanting to get back to sleep himself, snatched up the Order of the Merlin necklace and held it, tight. Lying there, staring at the canopy, he practically willed himself to sleep... or had that been the necklace?

In the morning, Harry had his mind made up: he was going to skip Divination and head to the library for more Explicatrix research -- or lack thereof. Hermione didn't like this idea and although she didn't say anything, it was obvious from the look on her face when Harry told them. Ron didn't have any opinion -- or at least one he didn't care to voice but it was as though his mouth had already said, "Good. I won't miss you."

So after breakfast, in which Harry sat by himself as far removed from Ron and Hermione as possible, Harry didn't even go near North Tower where Divination was held.

"You're wasting your time in there anyway," was Raides' comment when asked if he should really skip it. "You don't need that class."

More and more, Harry felt Hermione was right. The only thing Divination did was scare the pants off nearly the entire school about two years ago.

Reluctantly, Madam Pince granted Harry access to the Restricted Section of the library herself.

"Please, Madam Pince, I haven't found anything yet -- and you do want a Hogwarts victory, don't you?" Harry had said, to which she replied, a steely glint in her eyes, "Fine. But so help you if you wander off to the deadly curses section."

"Thank you so much!"

She simply stared accusingly at him which made him feel unnecessarily guilty. After a minute of having just opened his first book, he had to look up because someone who had been talking to Madam Pince just shouted his name.

"Harry!"

It was Hermione, followed closely -- and reluctantly, Harry guessed -- by Ron. She was tugging on his hand. Harry stared at Hermione as she came over towards him with Ron who looked like he wanted to kick and scream like a baby but refrained.

"We both agreed to skip class to help," Hermione explained while Ron's face became slightly screwed up in pain; Harry noticed Hermione was still gripping his hand, "didn't we Ron? Ron?"

Ron didn't say or do anything except give her a disgruntled look. Harry then stopped staring. Something in him wanted them to stay. Something else in him wanted them to go. He'd been listening to the later lately, so why not keep going with it?

"Fine," he said stiffly, really wanting to tell her to leave.

"Fine," said Hermione stiffly back.

She took four books off Harry's stack of six and gave two to Ron. Raides looked between the uneasy faces on all three of them.

"Not getting on well, are you?" she commented.

"Shut up," Harry, Ron and Hermione snapped in unison, united for a very brief moment.

Harry's stomach grumbled of guilt, however, as the period wore on. Hermione wasn't one to skip class -- ever. Harry could only recall her ever doing so one time. Magical Properties, Things That Don't Exist, House Elves Through the Ages... Thirty more minutes got them nothing.

"The 'Through the Ages' series sucks," Hermione admitted at last.

"Tell Harry this is useless," said Ron grumpily, slamming a book shut so hard that Harry jumped.

"Tell Ron if we don't find anything I'll have to forfeit," said Harry, not looking at him.

"Tell Harry to forfeit."

"Tell Ron to shut up."

"Tell Harry to shut up."

"The both of you shut up," Hermione interrupted, sniffing loudly.

Ron wasn't talking to Harry, this much he could see, and it was hurting Hermione a great deal to see them like this, that was also in plain sight. It's not my fault! Harry thought fiercely to himself, slamming a book shut almost as hard as Ron.

"What?" said Hermione, trying to sound as though she wasn't thoroughly unhappy.

"This," Harry grunted angrily, "the Explicatrix. I swear it doesn't exist."

Hermione made a noise of dissent.

"Remember last year?" said Hermione haughtily. Harry looked up. "The Book of Memories?"

"Yeah..." Harry drawled coldly, staring at her.

"We just have to keep looking," she said as if they'd find something any minute.

"You said that last year," Harry reminded her, "and it was Pettigrew who helped us -- BY GIVING US THE RIGHT BLOODY BOOK!"

"Mr. Potter," Madam Pince cut in sharply, "this is a library!"

"Tell Harry I think Dumbledore doesn't want him to be able to do it," said Ron casually.

Despite all his rage, Harry couldn't help but feel a rush of gratitude towards Ron for trying to help -- as blaringly obvious as it was that he didn't want to. Or was this just to make Hermione happy for some reason? In either case, Harry looked fondly up at Ron over the top of his round glasses then back down at the book in his hands.

"Thanks," said Harry quietly.

"Yeah... don't mention it," said Ron quietly back, with a touch of bitterness, looking at Harry... and then suddenly realizing he wasn't supposed to be so he went back to staring at the book he was holding.

Although the search, as was per usual, returned nothing, Ron hadn't spoken a word to Harry (directly, at least) and the prospect of seeing Michelle again was scary... okay, it would be a lie to say Harry had a good day. He finished that day without writing a word of notes. Professor Figg was very upset at him for this. In fact, Harry hadn't written a thing anywhere, even as far as homework went, being too upset at... everything. Upset over Mr. Weasley, about Mr. Malfoy (though he couldn't imagine why), about Dudley, about where the hell Sirius could be... Furthermore, Harry hadn't touched his Christmas presents and no one was daring enough to ask him about it, not even Dumbledore; he stuffed them under his bed to forget about them. And he hadn't read Cho's letter either which he wasn't sure he wanted to anyway.

It was Professor McGonagall's voice in Transfiguration three days later on Thursday that cut through him like the cactapus that just pricked Neville's fingers.

"Potter!" she barked at him. "Passing your final exam would require you to know how to change your shrivelfig into a cactapus."

Harry heard a steady stream of anxious breath and looked behind him to see Hermione who, as was also per usual, especially these days, giving him a pair of large, worried eyes. Ron was far more interested in the shrivelfig that he wasn't transfiguring, staring dumbly at it. Why wasn't Professor McGonagall barking at him? Harry asked himself. His frustrations then came flying out of his mouth before he had a chance to supress them.

"Sorry professor," he began in a self-deprecating tone, "but when you're being blamed for two deaths, you tend to obsess over it. Feel free to fail me now because I don't think I'm going to pass no matter what I do."

Feeling the heat rise in his face over what he just said, Harry started to pack his things back in his bag but she began yapping again. And there was a sharp intake of breath to his right which was Parvati Patil gaping open-mouthed at him.

"You are in no immediate danger, Potter, so excuse if I ask this of you," she yapped, both kindly and strictly. "You will sit down, you will get a quill and you will take notes since none of you except Miss Granger, who has just succeeded in making Longbottom bleed, are getting anywhere."

Hermione stopped looking at Harry and instead tended to Neville's fingers. Harry remembered Professor McGonagall taking a stab at saying something comforting to him just four, short (pleasant?) years ago and thought she did a much job better last time. Harry then looked in his bag for a quill and ink bottle. He succeeded in finding the ink but there was no quill. Then he remembered that Ron had snapped his last one.

"Accio pen!" he shouted, thinking of the only writing utencil he owned that wasn't in multiple pieces or had been burned in a fire... or both.

Sure enough, seconds later through the classroom door came the pen Harry had been holding when Cho first told him she...

He tried to avoid everyone's eyes for the rest of Transfiguration but this was hard because Hermione, Parvati and Lavender all seemed to keep looking at him to see if he was going to burst. It was particularly hard during Herbology where he was working across from them, trying to stuff mandrake feet into tiny socks while trying to keep his earmuffs on which seemed to be very tight on his very stuffed, very cloudy head. If he didn't keep them on, he'd end up unconscious for several hours from the cry of the mandrake.

At the beginning of this class, Harry almost -- almost laughed. Hermione gave a look that clearly said she objected to working with mandrakes again which were plants that, unfortunately, had what looked horribly like a human baby as its roots, the plant sticking out of its head. Professor Sprout gave her a really dirty look and she fell silent.

Heading back to the common room after Charms to throw his bag onto the first armchair he could aim at, he couldn't think of anything that would help him on a test. Just then, a first year girl who was walking in the direction of the chair, apparently to sit on it, gave him an offended look, then suddenly looked deathly afraid of him and scurried away. Harry sighed, his shoulders dropping an inch or two, shook his head and headed back out of the portrait hole. Now he had to endure everyone all throughout dinner. Great.

He entered the Great Hall and sat down as close to the staff table as he could sit where there was no one, clearly hoping for some quiet time. This was, unfortunately, not possible. When Harry was just about to bite the end of his chicken wing, Hermione spotted him as she, too, entered. Though he suspected it, he hoped she didn't purposely wait for him to go in first so she could find him. Tugging on Ron's cloak while Harry sighed at the sight of her, she walked straight towards him, Ron looking grumpy.

"Go away," said Harry automatically.

She didn't respond to this and instead did the opposite; she sat down directly in front of him. He didn't want to look at her; the people from the Slytherin table were giving him all the dirty looks he would ever need and didn't want to see the look on her face.

"What do you want," he said stiffly, resigning to the fact that she wasn't going to leave.

"Why did you say that in Transfiguration, Harry?" she asked him.

Amidst stares from Slytherins (and, he noticed, some from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, though few), Harry really didn't want to be talking about this.

"What's it to you?" Harry asked her, not looking up at her.

"Can't you see?" Hermioned asked nervously.

"See what?"

"Look around you!"

"Oh yes, Hermione, I see. I wish I didn't though because it sickens me every time I pass by a Slytherin and they whisper 'murderer' in my ear. Why are we talking about this again?"

"Ron said you punched him and your fist grew really big --"

"Did he now," Harry commented dryly, licking his fingers.

"-- like it did that first summer with the Mark of Ancients."

Ron turned to Hermione.

"Tell Harry I'm going to kill him when I get to it," he said. "It's on my list."

Harry's eyes darted up away from his chicken wing and towards Ron. Ron wasn't seriously considering doing that... was he? Again, thinking about the episode with Liam made him increasingly nervous. And he didn't know what to possibly do with the Memory Charm. Had placing him under one been the right thing to do or had it made Ron more bitter? Would it have lessened Ron's guilt or would have driven him insane? Thinking about these more and more under Hermione's dreadful gaze made his head -- and heart -- hurt so he stopped.

Hermione, unfortunately, noticed Harry's lapse into silence because she asked him with a fake smile, "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing," he lied, stuffing some chocolate pudding onto his plate -- then remembered he'd been sick of it ever since eating just that for dinner night after night not too many years ago.

"Oh," said Hermione brightly, that fake smile still there, "I just thought it might be something, you know, pleasant."

Harry stared coldly at her again. He hadn't thought of anything pleasant since the Yule Ball and it was just this that he informed her of. She must have thought she said too much because she sat silent.

"Are we going to keep talking about this until I'm dead and buried?" said Harry loudly, getting some stares now from fellow Gryffindors. "And don't try to shush me," he added.

"Talking about what?" said Hermione with that fake smile which was now very annoying to Harry.

"This!" Harry barked. "Lucius! Dudley! Arthur! Liam!"

"Liam?" said Hermione blankly while Harry fell quickly silent, realizing his mistake. "What about him?"

Ron gave Harry another one of his cold looks (which was slowly starting to resemble Malfoy's, Harry noticed unhappily) and then quickly went back to eating.

"Nothing," said Harry hastily. "Just -- just stop talking, okay?"

I'm not going to crack under her gaze, Harry told himself as Hermione continued looking at him, I'm not. I won't. He didn't think telling her the truth about Liam -- about Ron -- would do the moment any good. He'd pulled the same mistake and wasn't about to repeat it. Come to think of it, he'd done it a few times and never had it turned out the way he hoped... Who could he tell?

He was suddenly very torn over making Ron forget about Liam. If Ron had known, maybe Harry might have been able to explain what he was currently feeling to him because then Ron would understand? But then Ron would have to live with the guilt of such a thing and he couldn't even live with it... The truth about what could have been was bugging him. And bugging him and bugging him until a voice screamed in his ear.

"Harry!" it shrieked.

Harry looked up, his head swiveling in every direction to look for the source until it fixed upon the entrance of the Great Hall. A white cloak, the hood not covering the long black hair falling down to her waist. A fairly pretty face though it was presently screwed up in terror.

Michelle Quirrel bounded down the Gryffindor table and positively seized Harry from his seat, locking her arms around him. Harry sat, redfaced. To his horror, she broke down into unrestrained crying and apologies.

"My God, you're all right! I thought -- I thought -- oh but you're safe! Harry, I could have killed you!"

By some of the looks Harry was currently getting from Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, they wouldn't have minded.

"That was two years ago," Harry reminded her, trying to pry himself away. "Why are you so upset now?"

She unlocked her arms but grabbed his shoulders instead and shook them vigorously, looking straight into his nervous, green eyes and said, "I tried to convince my brother but he still thinks that you -- you --"

Harry noticed that she distinctly ignored his question.

"I'm fine," Harry lied and Hermione gave another noise of dissent.

"You are anything but fine, Harry," said Hermione, staring sharply at him and Harry was afraid Michelle was going to try to hug him again after she said this but, thankfully, she didn't.

Michelle sat down at the very end of the table which was, incidentally, right next to Harry, turned to him, tears leaking out of her eyes at the very sight of him and said, "So how are you? What are you doing lately?"

She looked good to go and talk for about five hours straight.

"I'm doing my homework, going to all my classes -- shut up, Hermione," Harry said, staring pointedly at her.

He tried to stop her from saying what she said next but there was no hope.

"He hasn't done any of his homework since Ron's father -- passed away," Hermione told Michelle, "he's been extremely grumpy and he's showing signs of the Mark of Ancients again. We don't know what to think."

"And I've been doing lots of research on my Triwizard clue," Harry added hastily, seeing Michelle's tears start to come faster.

"That's a whole other story, I assure you," said Hermione bossily, just as hastily. "Been looking ever since we -- er, he -- got the thing and we only know one thing about it."

Michelle now looked ready and willing to help with the Explicatrix. She turned, looking intelligent, to Hermione.

"What is that?"

"It's a shape-intention changer. Professor Dumbledore calls his clue an Explicatrix, Cybele's Orb. Shape-intention changer is a word the three of us settled on for anything the ancients made that changes shape when Harry grabs it." Here, Harry gave her a pair of eyes that said "leave me out of this conversation." To his gratitude, she did so. "I'll explain everything we think we know about these things. Just give me a minute to remember."

Hermione had Michelle's rapt attention. Michelle wiped her tears with a napkin she took from the table and sniffed.

"Okay, so what we know happens is that whenever an ancient touches these things -- or at least we think so because Harry is the only known ancient left alive," she said, glancing sidelong at him while Harry tried his best to ignore her, "-- they change both shape and size. We haven't figured out why they change size yet but it seems like they change into the animal that represents the House the holder would have been in. We're not quite sure how the Hogwarts Houses are connected to all of this but, there you are. You know what the staff was found as, right? It was a four foot long badger, Hufflepuff's animal. Harry grabbed it and it changed right into a seven foot long lion. The Explicatrix was Ravenclaw's colors and fairly small. Harry touched it and it grew a little bit and changed into Gryffindor's colors.

"That's basically all we know. All the books we've read on both the staff and the Explicatrix say neither exists. We used to think they were all nutters for describing them all differently but then we found out they change shape, size and color. Someone tried to do a really good job to cover up these things ever existing and they've done a good job of it."

"Except the fact that we're staring at them," Ron commented darkly.

"Everyone knows that Raides is capable of some 'magic so forbidden' and I'm willing to bet my parents' entire Muggle bank account that the Explicatrix is capable of some really dark magic, too," Hermione went on as if Ron never spoke.

"Thanks, Hermione," said Harry sarcastically.

"Harry, you know it and so do I," she replied to him sharply. "Except you have to figure out what it is the Explicatrix is capable of doing or you're never going to be able to do the second task. Raides can wait."

"Easier said than done."

"When is the second task?" Michelle asked.

"Not far away enough."

"February the twenty-eighth," Hermione told Michelle. "It's almost two months. If we don't find something before then, well, we will. We have to."

"Yeah right."

"Oh come on, Harry," Michelle said, all smiles, trying feebly to cheer him up. "How about Friday? We'll spend --"

"Don't you dare say 'we'll spend all night in the library,'" Ron interjected angrily. "Hermione's had us through that enough. I'm sick of books. I'd stop reading them but I'll never graduate."

Harry quickly turned his laugh into a rather unconvincing sneeze. Either no one noticed this or they chose not to pay any attention to it.

"So, Harry? How about it?" Michelle asked cheerily.

Harry looked between her, Hermione and Ron. Hermione was all for it. Ron, he could tell, would rather have a mandrake screaming in his ear.

"I'm not going," said Ron in a flat voice before Harry could answer. "You three -- two -- go. I have to go find Ginny. See you later."

Ron then proceeded to stand up and walk out of the Great Hall more like a zombie than anything else. Harry turned his head to the person next to him and saw Ginny, sitting a few feet down. This did nothing but make him worry about Ron more...

Michelle was staring after him then turned to Harry and asked slowly, "Did -- did I miss something? I thought you three were great friends?"

Ginny had apparently been listening in because she said, dragging her food over to sit next to Harry, "Were. Ever since dad died Ron's been acting all grumpy and strange."

"What, and you aren't upset over it? Wait, no I shouldn't have said that --"

"No," said Ginny immediately and Harry noticed that she was either taking it much better than Ron or she was practically dying on the inside, hiding it so very well. "I am but, I mean, come on... Look at him. I dunno, I had a really long talk with all of my friends and... well, I guess it helped. I still can't believe it though," Ginny went on slowly, looking sulky all of a sudden and poking her food with her fork, staring at it with a blank expression. "I hope they catch him, who ever did it, and... and he stays in prison for a really long time..."

Harry distinctly heard both Hermione and Michelle say "aww," and Harry himself felt strangely like putting an arm around Ginny. At the very least, she was acknowleding his existence. Then, to his great surprise, she made a crude pillow out of his shoulder. This made Harry feel slightly uneasy but it also made him think of Cho. Ginny wasn't visibly crying but it still was't a pleasant sight. Every now and then she would make a sudden movement like she was but was trying her best to supress the sound. Harry didn't know what to do with her so he let her stay like that until she decided to get up and leave.

The rest of the day had passed and Harry had survived, somehow. Instead of paying sole attention to her notes, Hermione was paying sole attention to Harry in History of Magic Friday morning. The subject?

"Today we will be looking at how the Unforgiveable Curses were discovered," Professor Binns droned.

Harry didn't even bother, he put his books back in his bag along with "Cho's pen," as he now referred to it as, and his notebook. Resting his head on his arms and staring at a dark spot on the floor, he caught up on sleep he hadn't been getting lately.

Michelle's arrival in the library later that day after dinner signalled the boring time. She immediately pulled out a small, dark green notepad with golden writing on it spelling out her name along the very bottom. Then she hesitated for a moment and handed it to Harry.

"Here, you keep it," she said. "You can use it to keep notes on the Explicatrix when -- when you find something on it!"

"Good luck," replied Harry gloomily. "We've been looking for, what, two and a half months and we -- have -- found -- nothing," said Harry hopelessly. Harry took out his pen from his bag and Michelle stared at it. "What?" he said blankly, looking back at her. "It's a pen. So?"

"Don't you usually use quills?"

"Ron snapped my last one."

"Where'd you get that from?"

"I was holding it when Cho --" Harry began, becoming silent rather fast and then he tried again. "I dunno, I just decided to bring it with me."

He looked down at the small diary-sized notebook in his hands, back up at Michelle giving her a very weak, very unsatisfying smile and then at the stack of books Hermione had just brought back. She seemed to notice he stopped himself from saying something, though he didn't know -- or care, really -- if she could tell it was personal. Harry opened the notepad and saw that there was already something written on the first page. A lot of something.

I'm so tired of being here, supressed by all my childish fears. And if you have to leave, I wish that you would just leave 'cause your presence still lingers here.  
And it won't leave me alone.

These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real, there's just too much that time cannot erase...

When you cried I'd... wipe away all of your tears. When you'd scream I'd... fight away all of your fears. I held your hand through all of these years but you still have... all of me.

You used to captivate me by your resonating light; now I'm bound by the life you left behind.  
Your face it haunts... my once pleasant dreams. Your voice it chased away... all the sanity in me.

These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real, there's just too much that time cannot erase...

When you cried I'd... wipe away all of your tears. When you'd scream I'd... fight away all of your fears. I held your hand through all of these years but you still have... all of me.

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone... but though you're still with me... I've been alone all along.

When you cried I'd... wipe away all of your tears. When you'd scream I'd... fight away all of your fears. I held your hand through all of these years but you still have... all of me.

All of me.

Harry looked up at Michelle and said, showing the words to her, "You left this in here."

She took the book from his hands, looked at it for a minute, then said, "Oh, just keep it."

"What is it?"

"Just a poem a friend of mine wrote," Michelle told Harry absently; she seemed to be embarassed over forgetting about it. "She's in a Muggle band called Evanescence."

"C'mon," said Hermione brightly as she came back with a stack of ten or so books. "We have a lot of work to do!"

"But this is hopeless," said Harry hopelessly and slouching back in his chair, his hands in his lap after putting the notepad on the table. "And we already looked through that one," Harry told Hermione, picking up A History On Cybele.

She glared at him for a moment and then, still glaring, roughly snatched the book from him and magicked it back onto its shelf. In response to this, Harry made a comment concerning a monthly cycle girls go through.

"Harry!" shrieked Michelle indignantly while Hermione said sharply, "That's not nice."

"C'mon!" said Harry in an unconvincing bright tone. "We have a lot of work to do!"

And then he sighed, turning to page one of Staves and Tomes, Books and Bones.

After about fourty minutes ("I'm not finding anything," commented an annoyed Harry; "Keep searching!" Michelle replied comfortingly though she looked distressed all the same), they found nothing on the Explicatrix but Michelle did find something on --

"RAIDES!" she positively bellowed exuberantly.

"What?" asked Raides, looking up from her spot on the floor next to Harry's feet and her tail suddenly getting raised in curiosity.

"Harry! Hermione!" Michelle went on. "Listen to this!

"Much of The Mother's -- wait a minute, 'The Mother?'" Michelle asked, stopping dead and looking up at Harry.

"Cybele," stated Harry simply. "That's her nickname."

This much he was willing to tell Michelle. He was not going to tell her Cybele's last name and the fact that he -- because her reaction upon first seeing him was bad enough.

"Much of The Mother's worry about creating such a powerful staff was worry over whose hands it would fall into." Harry leaned closer and Raides jumped up on the table much to Madam Pince's disamy.

"How'd we miss that!" said Harry angrily. "We must have read nearly every book here. Which one is that?"

"Shh!" Hermione grunted at him. "Shut up! Who cares? Go on, Michelle."

Harry sat back, now annoyed at Hermione, but was listening attentively anyway.

"'Her primary concern was, if the staff should happen to fall into someone else's hands (she seemed to know something of the sort would happen), how could she know the person's intent? It is rumored that the staff changes shape depending on its owner's intent and is also rumored to change size depending on the owner's magical prowess.' That's it! It grows if you're stronger magically -- er, wait a minute..."

"Oh come off it," said Harry at once, dismissively. "You think I'm a better wizard than whoever hid Raides?" Harry was curious to see what expression Raides was wearing and was not surprised to see her grinning her cheeky grin. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard... Everyone knows wizards and witches back then were more powerful than they are today. We learned that in History of Magic."

"Yeah," said Michelle, sounding let down and looking put out, "I guess you're right."

As the time wore on, Michelle's stress factor rose slowly as Harry held his head closer and closer to the book on his hands. Her stress factor rose considerably when this was finally at the point where if he fell asleep, you couldn't tell. Hermione screamed "Cho!" in his ear when this happened, waking Harry up from a pleasant dreaming involving grassy meadows and puffskeins. This was at one o'clock in the morning and the only reason they had been able to stay so late was because Madam Pince had, too, fallen asleep. She was awoken violently by Hermione's yell and she shooed them out, taking five points from Gryffindor for not waking her up.

Not much needs to be said about how the search went but, slightly unexpected was who was still up in the common room when it was all empty except for him.

"Oh, good -- er, morning, Ron," said Michelle, trying to fight down the urge to run, Harry guessed, before another fight broke out between them. Ron was staring daggers at Harry but Hermione's eyes flashed dangerously at him and Ron instead turned to the letter in his hand which Harry just noticed.

"Mom's sent this," Ron told the three of them in a barely audible voice. "I've -- I've been re-reading it over and over..."

Harry, Hermione and Michelle all exchanged nervous glances and walked as a unit towards Ron with Hermione being the one prying the letter from Ron's grip. Ron wasn't looking normal and Harry noticed that Hermione put a hand to her mouth as though in horror as she read the letter.

"What?" Harry asked urgently. "What is it?"

Hermione handed Harry the letter as if it was made out of poison ivy and used her free hand to help her other hand cover her mouth in horror.

Dear Ron,  
Fudge sent me a letter this evening. He offered me your dad's old job. Currently, we're living off his social security. We'll have the money from his life insurance fund soon enough though I don't know how long it'll last. Fred and George are working extra hours at the shop but I don't think I have to say that not many people are doing much shopping these days. Bill and Charlie are wiring us money and Percy, well, I hate to say it but he's stopped going to work period. I think he needs some time alone and he seems to think Harry did it. They're not going to fire him though, they're letting him use all the vacation days he never used. I don't think Harry ought to stay here until the killer is found. I tried to convince Percy but he wants revenge on whoever did it and he's just believing all the rumors.

Don't worry, Ron. We'll make it. Say hello to Ginny for me.  
Love,  
Mom

It would be a lie to say that it was worse than Harry could have ever imagined it but, regardless, it was very bad to put it lightly. Harry found it sickeningly ironic that Mrs. Weasley saw fit to send the letter to Ron while it was Ginny who probably would have taken the news slightly better. Then he realized that she couldn't possibly know this.

And suddenly, in the face of all of Ron's troubles, Harry wanted to put his animosity towards him curbside and state something more firmly than he'd ever stated it before.

"Ron, you are -- NOT -- paying me back for the trip to New York. Just forget about it."

"What trip to New York?" Michelle whispered in Harry's ear.

"I'll tell you later," Hermione whispered back.

Ron stood up, snatching the letter out of Harry's hand as if Harry had no right to touch it and for the brief moment this took, Harry was afraid that Ron was going to tear it. Ron then started for the spiral staircase.

"You're not, Ron," Harry told him again sharply as Ron continued to walk -- but ever so slowly. "Don't."

"I don't get it..." Michelle whispered in Hermione's ear to which Harry whispered back, "I'll tell you later."

Ron stopped at the top of the stairs, looking -- almost -- normal this time but more depressed than Harry had ever seen him.

"My dad's dead, Harry," he said softly as if Harry didn't have a clue, "you just don't understand."

Harry stood there and watched as Ron's feet disappeared from view. He knew that Ron knew that he understood and didn't think twice about letting this small display of thoughtless words pass him. Ron had too much on his mind; Harry knew this feeling very well.

"I do, Ron," said Harry quietly, "I really do."

Hermione and Michelle stood on either side of Harry, gaping open-mouthed after Ron. 


	42. The Shovel and Grave Theory

Chapter 42: THE SHOVEL AND GRAVE THEORY

January faded unpleasantly into February, the weather becoming no warmer, no nicer and bringing just as much snow and hail as no one liked to talk about. Even the weather was having a bad year, Harry thought irritably. The Quidditch field resembled a large, fluffy white blanket and the lake, a giant ice cube.

Further disturbing the atmosphere around Harry was Ron. He was almost more concerned over him than the Explicatrix (the key word here being almost), feeling slightly warmer (though very slight) after Mrs. Weasley's haunting letter concerning their finances. A highly unwelcome side-effect of Ron's continued, never-ceasing moping was Hermione's almost complete absence from Harry's life. And he continued to dread his N.E.W.T.s.

He had only one explanation for this and that was that she was distancing herself from him to make Ron happy. Harry didn't know if it was working nor, frankly, did he care. Who was Hermione to stop talking to him just to please Ron? he thought angrily, sitting in the common room, poring over his Potions notes and doing Professor Figg's homework poorly. After taking a minute to think how dumb this sounded, his finger on his chin, Harry stopped thinking about it. Upon reflection, Ron needed it more than him, he reasoned, and if it meant that she, well, it had to be done... Hermione didn't seem to care; she didn't seem to want to discuss the matter and Harry something like agreed with this unspoken understanding. So now he was alone. Again. Just like he'd been two years ago when he had the...

Michelle had been given the password to Gryffindor Tower though Harry wished this wasn't so. She immediately started consorting with Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown and the three of them took it upon themselves to ask Harry at least three times a day how he was feeling and --

"Hey, Harry, are you okay?" Padma asked him for the fifth time that day. She'd been sitting across from him. It was lunch and Harry had taken to not eating in there -- again.

"I'm fine," he said through gritted teeth, not looking up at her, his finger still on his chin and wondering why he kept telling them this. He put the hand back on his homework and made like he was really working on it, a strong urge to put his hand on the Order of Merlin plaque dangling from his neck instead but defiantly resisted it, as though this was a weakness.

There was only one explanation he had as to why they accepted angrier and angrier replies: they were simply too scared to ask him to elaborate. Of course, there was only one person in his life that he would currently elaborate to, he thought to himself, staring intently at his homework but not really interested in it at all. Harry then looked up from his homework to the fireplace. Padma saw this and was now looking like she always did when she was asking that question with her face rather than her mouth. Harry ignored it.

Yet Harry still hadn't read Cho's letter and he supposed he ought to; he didn't want her worrying about him because Michelle, Parvati and Lavender were presently bad enough. He sprang up from his seat, Padma now looking real worried, kicking Raides on accident in the face ("Ouch," she said lazily, more busy in swatting a fly with her tail), when he realized that not answering her letter was probably causing more worry on her part.

"What's up?" Parvati inquired of Harry nervously with a half-hearted smile, like everyone had been giving him these days...

"Nothing," replied Harry, calm again and stuffing his things in his bookbag. "See you in Defense Against the Dark Arts."

With that, he quickly headed straight for Cho's letter in his trunk and hid it inside his cloak. He then quickly darted back down to the common room, to head straight for the Owlery. Padma hadn't moved an inch and her head swiveled, staring at him, still with that anxious smile.

That owl bugging Hedwig before the trip was now far removed from her and she was better for it. Hedwig kept giving him cold looks as well as her tail. This might have brought a smile to Harry's face except he was too interested in Cho at the moment.

Just like last time he was in here, he tried to move some owl droppings with a wave of his hand. After a few tries, achieving nothing but aggrivation, he was disgusted when Raides solved the problem by clearing a spot with her tongue.

"What?" she said as if she had done nothing odd, now drying it with her tail.

Harry shook his head grievously and sat down, pulling out Cho's letter from inside his cloak.

Dear Harry,  
It must be really boring staying at Hogwarts! I sort of have to agree with Mr. Fudge, though. I mean, he's got a point, doesn't he? I hate to say it but so many parents probably would have been outraged if they let you go. Come on, Harry. The only people you've got on your side these days are the Gryffindors and me...

"But I didn't do anything!" shouted Harry incredulously. It almost sounded like she didn't believe him the full one hundred percent but that was ridiculous, she loved him.

All for the better. You get to finish that stupid study paper in the Dark arts -- how's that going, anyway? -- and you can spend more time looking up the Explicatrix.

I also hate to say I don't have all good news in this letter. If you're not sitting down, take a seat and calm yourself because this is bad. It's about Sirius.

Harry's heart immediately started beating several times faster. He'd almost lost Sirius before and he wasn't about to have that again. Also immediately, he recalled an owl he was supposed to get from Sirius. What with Ron and everything, he'd forgotten to care about how he never got it...

That owl you were supposed to get? It was intercepted by Death Eaters. We know that because Sirius and Remus got the owl back with the Dark Mark burned into its feathers and a letter with a threat written on it. I didn't include that letter here for obvious reasons.

Harry fully agreed with this; he didn't think his ribs would be able to take his current pulse let alone having it accelerated more. All he needed to know was that Sirius' life was in danger -- as well as Remus' but let's be frank here, he simply didn't care about him nearly as much as Sirius -- and the words that did it weren't all that important.

They've since moved somewhere else and aren't telling anyone. I don't know if they're still going to show up for the second task. Dumbledore insists -- and I'm sure you agree -- that Hogwarts is still the safest place to be so I wouldn't be surprised if they do turn up. I'm definitely going to be there. Can't wait to see what you do with your Tri-wizard clue!

Harry's heart plummeted another few thousand feet at this. If he didn't find anything soon, he'd have to force Hermione to speak to him about it. Surely someone would be able to pull a miracle answer out of nowhere?

I know you're not okay but you will be once this year blows over.  
Love,  
Cho

She had put it like that once before and Harry didn't like it this time either.

A couple of things were floating around in Harry's head, the first of which was to send Hedwig to Cho with a letter. Another of them was the face-reddening knowledge that she was probably mistaking his lack of a reply -- or at least right away, she probably still suspected he would eventually -- for dead worry. Or would she? Either way, he had to simply tell her that he hadn't even read it until today -- over dead worry concerning Ron's family. On second thought, he told himself, maybe he'd leave that part out or maybe just make it sound like he had forgotten about Hedwig delivering it... Yeah, that would work.

Lastly, Harry wasn't quite sure if he should spill all of the beans on his dead worry over Sirius. And then he told himself that he needed to stop putting "dead" before "worry." That aside, after all, he didn't want to sound as though he was too worried. "Worry" is quite a large part of my vocabulary lately, isn't it? he thought to himself irritably. Upon hearing this, Cho would worry over Harry more, he knew, and again, Michelle, Parvati and Lavender were bad enough.

Suddenly, out of memory so distant it seemed like a past life -- but it was just last year -- he remembered something. For a while, he resigned to tell anyone everything and anything. This was what had gotten him Cho, though admittedly out of lots of grief on both of their parts and, in the end, her thinking him to be so honest and... cute...

But this newfangled resolution hadn't helped him much. What good would telling Hermione all about Sirius do? What good would telling her all about that sickening feeling that swirled unpleasantly in his stomach that he would have to forfeit the second task? She already knew about the Explicatrix, he knew, and she probably guessed -- or rather, hoped -- that Harry would find something. And telling her about Sirius would probably just drive her farther away because, on his best guess, she'd see it as a call for attention. Quite the opposite, he wanted less. And he couldn't have that. And so there he was staring at a goopy piece of owl poopie, feeling worse and worse as it slid down the wall the owl had aimed at.

He shook his head to get that grotesque picture out of it, his hand sliding without him noticing to the plaque and mindlessly clutching it though it continued to do nothing. When he realized where his hand had gone, he quickly let go of it as if it were really hot and looked all around himself to, quite simply, remember where he was. Harry looked at his watch. It had been ten minutes that he'd just been sitting there mulling over things. If he was going to send Cho an owl, he needed something to write on and something to write with. With that in mind, he collected Hedwig from a group of screech and tawny owls and set off towards his four-poster to grab his pen and some parchment.

Parvati had gone somewhere and so instead of sitting up in his dormitory to write the letter, he did it in the common room, Hedwig happily sitting on his shoulder, content with preening her feathers. She fluttered down to sit by the fire when, after leaning forward the entire time to write the letter, Harry finally sat back, slouching deeply, to read it back to himself. There was no avoiding it, though; he'd have to tell her about Ron. But he threw in some good bits about classes to make up for all the bad stuff.

Dear Cho,  
Sorry for not writing back right away, I didn't read it until tonight. The day it came, I meant to read it later that night because I wanted to finish a part of that stupid term-long paper. When everyone got back from the trip, they were all talking about it and then classes started again and it slipped my mind.

As for Sirius, I'm concerned but I'm not losing my mind. They moved, didn't they? If it makes you feel any better, I'll become all panicky if their old place turns up destroyed, okay? They only got the owl (poor owl) and how are the Death Eaters going to find where they were staying, anyway?

Harry knew it was an outright lie to say he was "concerned but not losing his mind" but he didn't care much. He also made it sound as though him going on the trip was okay with everyone. Not really interested in reading the rest, he collected Hedwig, put it in an envelope and sent her on her way. Checking his watch, he was late for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry ran full on and caught a little bit of what Professor Delacour was saying before he'd entered the room. She was speaking loudly, as if she was either nervous about the subject matter or really wanted to get her point across.

"But what if you were, Miss Patil? What if you were to? And stayed like that?"

As Harry got very close to the door, he could hear Hermione speaking.

"Well, you'd probably die. I mean, you'd be out. You wouldn't be able to eat or drink. Not to mention if you woke up..."

"Does everyone think Miss Granger has a point?"

"You'd probably have really bad nightmares, too," Harry heard a voice belonging to Ron say. "I'd sure hate to have that happen to me."

Harry rounded on the door and walked in. Professor Delacour went as white as the pages of the book opened up to dementors in front of her; he could see the picture of one. He stopped dead at the sight of her and knew what they'd been talking about now; it was what would happen if someone were to pass out in the presence of a dementor and stay like that for days on end.

She gave him a strangled smile and said, "I -- I've been trying to save this lesson for a time when you weren't going to show up to class."

"I see," said Harry dryly, walking again and taking his seat next to Hermione, away from Ron. "So, are you going to continue to discuss another method in which Professor Trelawney can predict my untimely death?"

"I think we ought to wrap this part of today's lesson up," she said, grabbing her composure and turning to the chapter on grindylows, which they'd already covered four years ago. "If something of this sort should happen to you... you, or... anyone else that... becomes unconscious in the face of dementor," she tried to casually, "a normal sentence in Azkaban when it used to be run by dementors would probably result in death by starvation. So, onto grindylows."

"We already covered those," said Hermione.

Harry learned during dinner that night, in which Hermione seemed to have staged a loud conversation with Ron over dementors, that the dementors had been promptly removed from Azkaban the day at Hogwarts that Voldemort had tried to kill Harry for a second time. At least if he went to Azkaban for all of this, there'd be no dementors to kill him; instead, it would be the thought of being horribly and wrongfully imprisoned that might.

Harry continued sleeping and waking, getting "murderer" whispered in his ear every now and then by a passing Slytherin and waking up Ron, Seamus, Dean and Neville with a yelp with the dream he'd been having since the summer. He'd blown up on Malfoy during potions just a week after sending Cho her letter. That same week, Harry made a desperate visit to Hagrid because he just couldn't stand speaking only to Raides and his pillow. He was sure he'd have that dream again, which he mentioned to Hagrid, the eighth day after sending Cho's letter.

"Ah, Harry, all of us have some pretty bad dreams sometimes," Hagrid had said, though he was looking at Harry oddly, as though he'd rather not have heard this news.

Hagrid's response was none too comforting. But to top it all off, the reason he was so sure he'd have it again and again was because of what Hermione shoved under his nose during breakfast. And she still wasn't speaking to him.

HARRY POTTER: MUHAMMAD OR MURDERER?

There have been many dark secrets kept within the walls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft, writes Rita Skeeter, special correspondent for the Daily Prophet.

Harry's insides gave a horrible lurch. He was sure nothing Rita had to say would make his situation any better. On the contrary, he was quite sure life would get a lot worse.

Harry Potter, whose story no one need mention anymore, is believed to be responsible for the recent deaths of Dudley Dursley, Lucius Malfoy and, strangely enough, the father of one of his best friends, Arthur Weasley. While it might be easy to see why Potter would want Malfoy dead, let's take a look at the reasoning behind why some minds believe him to have killed Mr. Weasley or his own cousin, seventeen-year-old Dudley Dursley.

It is known that Potter had been denied by Mr. Cornelius Fudge himself to go on the trip sponsored by Hogwarts to New York. His best friend, Ronald Weasley and younger sister, Ginny Weasley, were unable to afford the fourty Galleons required of the two of them to go so they asked Potter if they could borrow. As is known -- widely or not -- there is quite a large fortune within Gringott's belonging to Potter, left to him by his parents. Sixty galleons of this money went towards the trip and the twenty he spent for himself was never refunded by the Ministry. The Dailey Prophet also learned that Potter had loaned the Weasleys some money earlier. The two combined loans, coupled with the fact that he had demanded they pay him back every cent and that he was not able to partake on the trip, many believe Potter simply snapped.

Because of this, Mrs. Molly Weasley, who is sending two of her seven children to Hogwarts, is now in a very tight financial pickle. Potter, as expected, is showing no remorse and we might very well see He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named hand out Valentines before Potter loans any of his friends, who are rapidly diminishing in number, another Knut.

As is now released, Potter used an outlawed spell, Animus Speculum, to worm his way into Hogwarts' trip to New York.

Harry wasn't sure he could take reading the rest without breaking something, so he didn't try. He tore Rita's article in two and gave one piece to Ron and the other, Hermione. A very white Hermione took the piece from his hand, took the piece from Ron and shoved it in her bag. A very angry Harry collected Raides, let her finish his dinner, which he hadn't eaten much of to begin with, and went off to the library for more useless Explicatrix research. In the common room that night, him, Parvati, Michelle, Ron and Hermione were the only ones left.

It was very late and he wasn't sure but his best guess was that Hermione was only there because she'd been expecting him to burst out with something about Rita's article at any moment. Michelle must have read it, too, because some of her favorite things to stare at for the past hour were Raides, Harry, the fireplace, Harry, the portrait hole, Harry, the ceiling and Harry. Staring at the Explicatrix coldly like it was the bane of his existence for about thirty seconds, Harry finally bursted out with something.

"Hermione, I haven't found a damn thing on this thing yet."

Michelle quickly looked at him and said as if it he'd only looked for one minute, "What? Oh come on! I'll go with you again tomorrow."

She did. They found nothing. Hermione's only advice was that he should simply tell Dumbledore that he can't do the task. While he thought she was right, Harry was having a great internal struggle.

"I think you should go anyway!" said Michelle, with that annoying fake bright smile of hers.

"Oh, yeah, that's what I'll do," said Harry sarcastically. "I'll go anyway and look like a bloody idiot because I have no idea what the task is."

"Maybe you should just try smashing it on the floor; I'm sure you're angry enough. Maybe if Harry Potter is angry at it, it'll want to become his bestest fan and do what he wants it to do," said Ron... and then he added, "Oh wait, I'm not supposed to be talking to you."

"You can't break it, Ron, remember?" Hermione reminded him.

The only reedeming part of that night was the arrival of Hedwig not a moment too soon; Harry really wanted to hit Ron again. Luckily (for Ron), the thought of reading Cho's reply was too strong and it was this that drove Ron completely out of Harry's mind. Hermione must have seen this short-lived relief on his face because she gave him a weak smile but it faltered on the look from Ron's.

Harry took the letter from Hedwig's leg and she fluttered off the Owlery, looking ready for a long nap. Then he ignored Hermione's following eyes as he went up to his dormitory for some privacy to read.

Dear Harry,  
I'm scared, I don't know about you. They're Death Eaters, they work for You-Know-Who, they'll find a way, Harry, you know they will. Not that I hope they do, it just wouldn't be a good sign if they do. Well, whatever.

Why did you leave out you using that outlawed spell, Animus Speculum, to get yourself into Hayden's? You made it sound like no one cared that you went on the trip and obviously they did because, did you read that article in the Daily Prophet about you? Several parents, especially Draco Malfoy's mom, want you expelled, Harry, and you know what Dumbledore's been telling you about that!

It rang unpleasantly in Harry's head. "You're only here because we care more about your life than a bag of magic tricks." At this, his heart sunk a few notches. She'd caught him in a lie and, somehow, lying to her felt different than lying to Ron or Hermione and, strangely, Dumbledore or Sirius.

I don't know who to believe, you or that article.

Harry stared. Why wouldn't she believe him? What HAD the rest of that article said?

It went on and on about all the ways you just look guilty and all the reasons you'd have for wanting Dudley, Lucius Malfoy and Arthur Weasley dead and it sounds pretty convincing. Dad's been saying stuff about you lately, and I want him to stop but he belives you're up to really bad things. I really don't want you lying to me, Harry, because it doesn't help us any in a situation like this.

Harry, who had been reading the letter while lying down on his four-post bed with one leg tucked in, let his arm limply fall down the side as he finished reading. This made his eyes greet the canvas and his mouth was hanging open in a sort of shock. Of all people that could possibly side with that horrible Skeeter woman, one of them was Cho. Harry wasn't sure how much more of Rita Skeeter he could stand without really wanting to kill someone -- other than Voldemort that is.

For the first time he could ever recall -- or at least the most recent -- all he wanted was a knife and Voldemort's neck. Or perhaps Raides as the great staff and Voldemort in a full body bind. If that happened, it would all be over and he wouldn't have to think about it anymore. He and Cho could live happily ever after, he could graduate Hogwarts in peace, go live with Sirius until he could get a job, move out (possibly with Cho), get married, have kids... A really big obstacle was standing in the way of all of that, though. It had the words "I am Lord Voldemort" written on it.

Clear as day, Harry recalled the time the sixteen year old Tom Riddle had used Harry's own wand to draw the name Tom Marvolo Riddle in thin air and then rearrange the letters into "I am Lord Voldemort." How Harry would love to turn the tables around, take Voldemort's wand, draw his own name in the air and then take the letters, add some new ones, pull a few out and make it say "Voldemort is dead."

"Voldemort is dead."

That had a nice ring to it.

Harry gave himself a little shake, sat up and, before another second had passed, decided to send another owl straight back to Cho apologizing -- and desperately try to make her believe him to be innocent. That was the part of her letter he couldn't neither stand nor understand. While he was at it, he'd ask her what was in the letter that Sirius was supposed to send to him, if she knew, and he'd also ask her if she knew how the Death Eaters captured that poor owl in the first place.

Before finishing the letter, he noted a postscript on the very bottom of Cho's letter. He turned it over to read.

And, oh Harry, Skeeter found out about that dream you have! You know, the one about You-Know-Who killing your parents before he kills you then you wake up? It's in that article too! She says she got it from Hagrid. Everyone's going to think you're after him now!

Hagrid had done some dumb things in the past, Harry had to admit to himself, but he didn't particularly want to know how Rita Skeeter suckered this information from him. At this, Harry took the advice of the great Mr. Weasley and put it out of his mind though he was sure everyone was going to fear for Hagrid's life now and he hoped Hagrid wasn't among them. He hadn't killed anyone (he didn't want to say "on purpose" because the thought of Dudley bothered him -- a lot) and he certainly wasn't going to kill Hagrid.

After his new letter to Cho was finished, he enlisted the help of a screech owl who had been eyeing Hedwig funny, who, in turn, had been giving that owl cold looks; she obviously had better taste. Hedwig gave a hoot of thanks, rode on his shoulder all the way back to Gryffindor Tower to show more thanks and nested on his trunk at the foot of his bed to sleep. Finally, Harry thought, someone who appreciated him.

The second task loomed nearer and nearer and it had only been two days since Harry sent his letter to Cho than that screech owl came streaming drunkily into the Great Hall, falling like a bomb upside-down into his morning porridge, a letter tied to its feet. Splashed with milk and feathers, Harry was now definitely not pleased with this owl in the slightest. Sure, its service had been quick but the delivery was very unsatisfactory. Eyeing Hedwig, who was plainly not interested, was one thing but forcing him to have to change and try to not be late for class was the icing on the -- well, him. Ron, who had just turned his head lazily to see what made a part of the tablecloth turn white, wasn't laughing and this made Harry feel slightly better.

There were loud sniggers coming from all over the Great Hall, which he could guess were directed at him and their owners were obviously not trying to stifle them. Harry stuffed the letter in the only clean part left of his cloak; he'd be reading it in Divination.

Before the owl had come, breakfast was already nearly over and Harry had just begun to eat -- like had been doing for a while now. This meant, unfortunately, since he liked to eat as late as possible, that by the time Harry finished eating, finished Professor Trelawney's homework, scrambled back to Gryffindor Tower, got changed and arrived in class, he was --

"Late, my dear," said Professor Trelawney's voice before he'd even climbed the ladder.

Not expecting her to announce his arrival, Harry stopped walking abruptly, reminded himself he only had four months left with her -- and there seemed to be a good chance he'd die before then -- and climbed the rope lader into the classroom.

Ron was sitting at a table with Lavender and Parvati, ignoring Harry as best as he possibly could. Harry turned away to sit as far as from Lavender and Parvati as possible, Raides trotting at his heels.

"Today, I think, we will take a break from our very long study in Runes as tellers of the future," rang Professor Trelawney's voice.

She took a wand out from inside her robes, turned around in her chair to face the kettle being heated by the fire that Harry oh so despised and floating out of it came a bag of -- plants? Or at least that's what it looked remarkably like. Professor Trelawney then magicked the kettle out of the fire and beckoned the class to move their chairs, tables and poufs closer to the fire. When the scraping of all manner of furniture was finished, Harry was content with sitting farther back than anyone.

For an entire boring period, Harry watched as everyone took one each of two plants ("Come, Potter," said Professor Trelawney to Harry, "and take") and finally found out what the burning fire with the smell coming from it was for.

The plants, briar and vervain, were to be thrown into it and the resulting flames examined. Blues flames nearly torched Parvati's hair; a long, thin, spindly flame of yellow cooked Neville's quill; Ron's turned the entire fireplace black with soot and Harry's, well, Harry didn't want to have a go.

"Potter," said Professor Trelawney flatly, though Harry could tell she was going to burst any moment.

"Sorry, but I'm quite sick of being told about how I'm going to die next," Harry replied angrily, not moving. Parvati and Lavender were looking curiously at him.

"But you must!" she implored like some kind of prophet, her eyes gleaming.

Harry stared blankly at her, his own eyes expressionless which was in stark contrast to his stomach which was grumbling very unpleasantly at the moment.

"Fine," he grumbled at her and her eyes were now shining like rubies.

The bag of the plants was sitting on Ron's table, who could have picked it up and handed it to Harry, all without getting up -- except he didn't. This left Harry to stand up, walked over, grab the bag and pull out one branch of vervain and briar each. Professor Trelawney standing over his shoulder resembling a large tree twig, Harry tossed both of them into the fire.

It sparkled, crackled and a tongue of flame shot out of it as it turned black for a brief moment as the tip turned white. Professor Trelawney grumbled as unpleasantly as Harry's stomach still was.

"Dont -- even -- say it," Harry warned her before she'd gotten a word out.

Ron let out a cough that sounded oddly like a strangled laugh. In preparation for the coming prediction of his death, Harry plugged his ears with his fingers but he could still hear the professor babbling.

"Ah, yes," she began, her misty voice as she stared knowingly at the flames that had gone back to normal. "It is the black flame of danger and the white flame of protection. Ten points if anyone can tell me what this means?"

She turned to the class, Harry desperately wanting to leave. Lavender Brown was visibly trembling and from this, Harry could tell that she knew what it meant nor was it anything very good.

"Great danger lies ahead," Lavender began timidly, glancing shortly at Harry. "In spite of this, you don't have to be afraid because of the protection -- or self-preservation -- you've got inside you. As long as you don't act recklessly, you'll be okay but if you become too self-satisfied with this knowledge in mind, you won't act as you usually do and you'll fail."

"I'll keep that in mind," Harry mumbled loudly. "Maybe in a few weeks I won't even be here because I'll be in so much danger."

"Don't be so sure," said Professor Trelawney mysteriously and suggestively, shooting him a curious eye as she cocked her head at him.

That afternoon, Harry resolved to go see Hagrid because someone shouted at him in the entrance hall, "Going after poor Hagrid now, are you?" With a contemptuous look at the Explicatrix sitting in a chair in the common room, Harry took his dad's invisibility cloaked and went to Hagrid's hut on the front grounds, not at all cold in the snowy weather thanks to his dad's other cloak.

As per usual, Fang the boarhound answered Harry's knock by scratching at the door.

"Harry?" Hagrid called from inside. "Is that you?" Harry didn't have to think long about how Hagrid knew it was him; he'd probably heard what had been said in the entrance hall. "I know yeh aren' out ter kill me," he said, his beetle-black eyes sparkling as he opened the door.

Harry threw his cloak onto one of the huge armchairs and heard a boiling kettle behind him.

"Can I have some tea, Hagrid?" he asked.

"Oh, er, that's not tea," said Hagrid shiftily.

"What is it, then?"

"That's fer the second task!" exclaimed Hagrid proudly.

Harry groaned loudly.

"Stop right there," he said, halting Hagrid dead in his tracks.

"Ah, come on, Harry --"

"Hagrid," Harry began desperately, "I haven't found anything on that -- that " -- he was obviously casting around for the most incriminating word -- "thing." No word seemed to be satisfying enough.

"Nothing?" said Hagrid who sounding slightly surprised, one of his eyebrows raising in suspicion.

"No!" Harry admitted readily. At this, Hagrid stared. "Everyone who still cares if I even win or not is probably thinking I'm going to pull this fantastic stunt."

"Yeh're the only Hogwarts champion!" Hagrid stated, looking proudly at Harry. "They have to -- don't they?" he asked cautiously.  
Harry himself couldn't tell if anyone really cared if there were was a Hogwarts champion; Adrianne had enough charisma that many people seemed to want her to win, forgetting Harry was even there. He'd seen her walking in the corridors, eating at breakfast, lunch and dinner (though virtually ignoring his existence)...

"The second task is in just a few weeks -- and I don't even want to know what a boiling kettle has to do with it -- and I'm not going to find anything on the Explicatrix. Like I said, everyone probably thinks I'm going to pull some fantastic feat like I kept doing last time. Don't even mention the bloody dragons from the first task. I don't know what the Explicatrix does and most books say it doesn't even exist. Dumbledore probably doesn't know what it does and come to think of it, he probably gave it to me to find out what it does. Does he even know if it's going to help me with the stupid task? All we know is it grew and changed color when I first touched it. Hagrid," Harry rambled on, looking up helplessly at Hagrid and feeling all panicky, "all I'm going to have by then is my wand, the stupid orb and a whole lot of -- humiliation..." he finished hopelessly.

It was then that Harry noticed he'd taken a seat on the armchair where he'd placed his cloak and was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, resting his head in his palms. Some of the panic that he'd been so far escaping was catching up with him and it was unsettling -- very unsettling.

For a good few solid seconds, Hagrid couldn't think of anything to reply with. Then he stumbled over some words, Harry making out phrases such as, "well you could," "and if that don't work," "but what about," and the ever popular, "Harry, just go ter the task and give it yer best shot."

"WHAT BEST SHOT?" Harry roared so loudly Hagrid dropped a spoon as he brought it over to the boiling kettle. "Hagrid, you don't seem to get it --"

"Harry, --"

"This stupid orb is what's supposed to tell me what the task is and what to do for it. What would I have done if Barty Crouch Jr. hadn't basically told Dobby to get gillyweed for me to do the second task three years ago? Eh? I'd've had to forfeit. No one's probably ever HEARD of this thing in ten thousand years, let alone knowing what it does --"

"-- would you --"

Harry sat up straight, looking up at Hagrid's back who was tending to the boiling kettle. He wanted to ask what it was but didn't bother because Hagrid was not likely to tell.

"I've got enough on my plate without this stupid tournament on it. You heard what happened to Sirius? Someone intercepted an owl he tried to send to me and burned the Dark Mark into its feathers. They moved. Honestly, if someone finds out where they were staying, I'm going to really start panicking --"

"-- try and --"

Harry rested his head back on his palms, continuing unabated.

"Speaking of which, I suppose I ought to be really mad at you for Rita Skeeter's article. I mean, what the hell did you tell her for? I just want this year to end so I can -- and don't you say 'calm yourself.'"

"-- calm yourself," said Hagrid anyway.

"How d'you do it," asked Harry bitterly.

"Do what?"

"Stay, well, cheery through all this?"

Hagrid turned around, a smile evident in his tangled beard and said, "I've come ter realize that if yeh drive yerself nuts with the wait, by the time the event comes, yeh realize that the wait is just plain worse. So there's no point in makin' yerself worried sick over it and yeh just got ter wait until it comes. If you do, like I see yeh doin' all the time, well, just look at yerself, Harry. All nervous and shakin'."

"I just don't know what to do. Ron and Hermione not talking to me..."

"Yeh been havin' a lot of breakdowns lately, no?" Hagrid said gravely.

Breakdowns? Harry preferred to think of them as "expressions of his current concerns."

"I don't know if you'd call it --"

"Listen, Harry. Yeh'll get up on February the twenty-eighth and yeh'll give it yer best shot. If yeh fail, yeh fail and no one'll think any the worse of yeh." Harry made a noise of distinct dissent in the back of his throat which Hagrid chose to ignore. "Yeh've got the hardest Triwizard clue out of all of 'em and what'll they think if yeh do figure it out? Eh?"

Harry hadn't really thought of that though he didn't really care either so it was a moot point.

Later that night, Harry realized he had not read Cho's letter, being too caught up in... other things... After Ron and everyone else had fallen asleep, he stayed up, still not having had changed into pajamas; he'd been thinking about it ever since leaving Hagrid's.

Her letter was still inside his cloak. He crawled into bed, sitting Indian style, pulled the covers over his legs to keep them warm (was he shivering because it was cold or...) and, wide awake, read. The first thing he noticed was that there was no "Dear" in front of "Harry."

Harry,  
I'm just really scared now. The place where Sirius and Remus were staying at turned up destroyed. You were right, it was in the Daily Prophet.

He was right? He didn't think it would happen, he didn't guess it would happen, he'd only said he would enter high-panic mode if it did. And he was. His hand was now shaking.

Sorry about not believing you, though. It's not like you've done anything really, really horrible.

Harry had a nasty foreboding feeling, especially concerning the second task. Somehow, he felt that jinxed him; something bad WAS going to happen and now the question was what, not if. It all felt like a book full of bad cliches and plot twists.

I'll be coming to the second task. Can't wait to see you!

As for what was in the owl that Sirius was supposed to send you, I don't know, it was specially for you.

Can't wait to see what you do for the second task,  
Cho

Great, thought Harry, now Cho thinks I'm going to pull some fantastic stunt, to. My life is ruined, he went on talking to himself, slumping back heavily onto his pillows. Wait a minute, what life? You're going to be left to rot in a cell in Azkaban but at least there won't be any dementors.

I wonder how Voldemort's going to do it, though? he asked himself, referring to his seemingly eventual demise.

As Harry made the letter float to his bedside cabinet with just his hand, exactly how it was going to happen came to him very suddenly and it was quite simple, really. Harry, laying there, utterly horrified, had a strong feeling Voldemort was going to storm Azkaban with a pack of... dementors.

Not even paying attention to what he was doing, he snapped his fingers and was instantly changed into pajamas. He didn't know what to think; he didn't know what to do. Voldemort's plan seemed to be going very smoothly and it didn't look like anyone outside of Sirius cared anymore. Ron wasn't speaking to him and neither was Hermione out of some strange respect for Ron. If Harry hadn't been laying down, the distinct lack of blood to his brain at the moment would have done a touch more than make him feel slightly lightheaded.

Throw in the Explicatrix, the second task and Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle sometimes sniggering at him over the dream as they had been and he would soon be shopping for the fastest earth-digging shovel Galleons, Sickles and Knuts could buy. Of course, that was all banking on Voldemort not getting to him first.

Was there anything, anything at all that he could do? Nope, Harry concluded quickly, you're a dead man. It was like living a bad dream that just didn't want to die out, his best friends not speaking to him, Cho turning a cold hand and the Ministry of Magic believing him to be a miscreant. Perhaps it would be easier if he just surrendered himself to Voldemort but somehow that didn't seem the proper thing to do after all he'd ever done (what a scary thought that was). If there was any hope, giving up all hope in the blink of an eye sure wasn't going to help nor did he honestly want to give Voldemort the satisfaction. Maybe he'd just -- just see it through to the end. After all, the longer he kept himself out of Azkaban, the longer he lived. If he could just keep himself out of Azkaban, everything would be all right.

Harry took a breath so deep he thought his lungs would burst but it did help -- however little. Unfortunately, that little voice, the one saying something bad was going to happen, kept replaying its words to him like an annoying Pensieve. He tried to beat it down but it was like taking on a manticore and some of its friends armed with just a twig. But what could happen? The first task was just an accident and now he knew perfectly well to not use lightning bolts for anything, good or bad. There was a low chance of there being any snakes so he couldn't freak anyone out with Parseltongue. It didn't seem like anything could go wrong.

Yeah, Harry concluded to himself, unaware that his hand was holding the Order of Merlin plaque under his covers because it wasn't working, that's what I'll do. 


	43. The Second Task

Chapter 43: THE SECOND TASK

Before Harry knew how many days had passed since that night where he didn't sleep at all, one morning he was being shaken awake. His eyes didn't want to open but he was being shaken more vigorously and before he knew what happened, he'd had the covers ripped from his grip. As a pleasant surprise, as soon as his eyes focused on the figure standing over him, he almost felt like smiling.

"Hello, Sirius."

"Good morning," said Sirius, breaking a small smile of his own -- and then frowning. "You've got about an hour so you'd better get ready."

Harry blinked.

"An hour for what?"

"The second task, of course."

Despite the skin and all that other stuff holding it in place, Harry's stomach dropped out of him. And the blood draining from his face was a dead give-away to Sirius of the right-panic he suddenly found himself in; he'd still not discovered anything about the Explicatrix.

"Harry, is there a reason you just went almost completely white?"

Harry sat there for a moment, gripping the sides of the mattress like he was on a really fast rollercoaster ride and was going to fall off any moment.

"Sirius, I don't know a damn thing about my clue," he heard himself saying, his eyes transfixed on a blemish on Sirius' nose.

Sirius went white now, too, though not quite as white as Harry.

"You're kidding," he said blankly.

"No, I'm not. It's just like all those books about Raides."

"Someone say my name?" Raides said groggily, waking up, crawling out from under Harry's bed.

"I don't think this is the time to give you the copy of the letter you never got from me, then," Sirius decided.

"No, not really," Harry agreed. "I don't think so. What am I gonna do?" he panicked, quickly getting up, snapping his fingers once again to change -- to which Sirius stared ("What?" asked Harry).

"Probably better get something to eat first." Somehow, Harry didn't think he'd be able to drink, forget eat. On second thought, Sirius realized this and added, "Do you know anything about it? Anything at all?"

Harry desperately casted his mind around. He had a strange feeling, despite all the books saying the Explicatrix doesn't exist, it does have some magic though how he knew, he couldn't have explained. This he told Sirius.

"I'm sure it does something," said Sirius, trying to sound comforting and not doing too great a job. He picked up Harry's cloak and the box in which Harry kept the Explicatrix with the Explicatrix itself in it.

"Yeah, let's just hope I can figure it out in the next -- fifty four minutes," Harry continued panicking, checking his golden wristwatch. "And that doesn't seem likely because I've spent SO MUCH TIME WITH IT!" Harry shouted, now thoroughly vexed. "I'm doing bad in all my classes and I'd probably be failing Potions if Professor Figg didn't realize that, in her words, 'my stress level is exceedingly high.' Good thing it's not Snape teaching Potions this year or I probably would --"

"-- not fail with him, either. Strange, yeah, but him and I are... starting to get along."

Harry stared.

"Really?" he had to make sure. Normally, news such as this would probably shock Harry but he was already numb with plenty of it. Something of the knowledge that, in about an hour's time he'd be doing something -- he didn't know what it was -- and more unsettling was he didn't even know where.

"Watch who you talk to, Harry. Fudge is out there along with Rita Skeeter. It might be worth mentioning that Karkaroff is looking extra irritable today." Harry had almost completely forgotten about Karkaroff and Madam Maxime and their batch of students.

Harry and Sirius walked to the Great Hall not speaking, Sirius hoping that his hand on Harry's shoulder would make him feel a little better (it didn't). They passed Sebastian on the way who gave Harry a cold look and started walking faster. Upon entering the Great Hall, Harry could see Dumbledore up at the staff table talking animatedly to Professor McGonagall and he felt almost like going up there and giving Dumbledore a piece of his mind or at the very least throwing the Explicatrix at him, breaking his long, crooked nose (once again, perhaps). Ron and Hermione were talking to Adrianne while the other Gryffindors, while at least saying hello to Harry, didn't really do much more.

For the entire time up until Professor McGonagall's voice began calling the champions, Harry listened to Sirius give some kind of speech where his voice sounded oddly echoed and distant on what the task probably was. Harry payed no attention mostly due to the fact that every sound his ears were picking up seemed to be too muddled to make out. He felt the less he knew, the better off he probably was; that way, he wouldn't have to panic -- for now. All he had to do, really, was not die and not want to disappear, despite all his best efforts, when all of the judges give him his big fat inevitable zero. The food in front of him lay untouched and at one point during the speech, Michelle tried to come over.

"Oh, Harry!" she cried, her arms wide open. "You haven't found a thing!"

Sirius shooed her away before she got close enough to do anything with her arms.

"This way, champions," said Professor McGonagall, sounding the exact opposite of Harry: cheerful.

With one last look at Sirius, wishing to throw the Explicatrix in his hand at various people -- most of whom were Slytherins -- Harry's jelly-like legs stood him up and for some reason he followed Adrianne and Sebastian out of the Great Hall. Professor McGonagall was leading them to the entrance hall and out through the front doors. Hagrid, who at the sight of Harry was completely forlorn, was otherwise sitting on a stool in front of his hut. Cornelius Fudge and Ludo Bagman were on either side of Hagrid.

"So!" said Bagman, far more cheerful than Professor McGonagall (who dropped all pretense and stalked away towards Dumbledore), "I trust you've all figured out your clues?"

Harry saw that, as Ginny had said, Sebastian's clue somewhat resembled a wizard's compass. Feeling some anger despite all his numb shock, for all it was worth, Sebastian's clue might very well lead him right to whatever he had to do. Adrianne, on the other hand, had a metallic blue bracer that was glowing on her left arm, her wand in her other hand. For all it was still worth, Harry was pleased to see Sebastian looked clueless. This made him almost happy.

"Yes," chorused Adrianne and Sebastian who were both smiling while Harry said grumpily, "No."

Bagman's smile faltered a little. Then he let out a little chuckle as if Harry was just kidding.

"But I --"

"Very well, then! You know what you have to do!"

But, funny, Harry didn't know what to do. His insides were rolling and knotting and he turned to see what Adrianne and Sebastian were doing. Both of them seemed to be set, Adrianne checking out the bracer on her arm while Sebastian studied the reddish dot on the top of his... cheating device, more like, Harry thought to himself.

If he did some quick guesswork, he needed to find something... or something. But where? In the entirety of the Hogwarts grounds?

And then, to his horror, both Adrianne and Sebastian turned to face the forbidden forest. Harry followed suit, feeling like he'd just been gutted and shown his own entrails.

"You better do something," Harry muttered to the Explicatrix like it was some sort of misbehaving pet, holding it eye level, staring at his gold-tinted finger behind it.

As he looked at all the people flooding onto the grounds, he spotted Cho talking to some girl Harry vaguely recalled seeing her talk to once or twice last year. She walked over to Ron and Hermione who immediately engaged her in conversation. Harry didn't think it was any talk about himself. Ron pointed in his direction, giving him a slightly cold look. At this, Harry turned back around, facing the forbidden forest.

Whose stupid idea was it to hold a task in the forest? What did he possibly have to do? Would he ever find out? How could he possibly do it? Should he just come out in a half hour's time and say he couldn't do the task? The situation was surreal; he didn't even know what he had to do and here he was, facing the second task and it was mocking him. Horribly.

"Harry," Bagman said, tapping him on the shoulder, "where's Raides?"

"What?"

"You are to take her with you wherever you go, aren't you?"

Harry rolled his eyes and called her from inside his head. She came running at him from the castle doors amid many staring eyes.

"Right, then," said Bagman, standing back to address all of the champions. "On the count of three!"

Harry closed his eyes in utter disbelief of what was going on right now. He took off his glasses and, his hand shaking, wiped his face with his free hand, beads of sweat from his forehead being swept away. Unfortunately, new ones were prime and ready to take their place.

"One -- two -- three!"

Adrianne and Sebastian ran right into the forest, both looking set. Harry, who really wanted to just tell Bagman that he had no idea what to do, ran off into the forest anyway. The only good part about this venture into the forest was that it was daytime. Rather tragically -- but he thought it might come in handy -- Harry knew the forest fairly well.

After about ten minutes of wandering, Harry heard Adrianne's voice.

"Avoid the hinkypunks, avoid the hinkypunks..."

Now he at least knew one thing he didn't before. But it didn't help much; he still had no idea what he had to do. Still walking to nowhere in particular, he stared coldly at the Explicatrix in his hand as Adrianne's footsteps died away. Feeling hopeless, Harry pulled his wand out of his robes and prodded Cybele's Orb with it. It didn't do anything. After that, he continued to walk some more, his anger at Dumbledore for giving him such an impossible clue mounting.

Some time later, he heard Sebastian saying, "The hinkypunks said this and that -- that huge spider said... So that means... And the thing vill be..."

It sounded like he needed to solve some sort of puzzle to be able to locate something.

Harry was now thoroughly angry. Months of trying to figure out what the Explicatrix does had failed him completely. Knowing it couldn't break, he resigned to try his very best. Harry pointed his wand at himself and tried to shout, "Fortitudinus!" though he wasn't exactly sure that was the word that escaped his mouth. He then threw the Explicatrix, as hard as he could, at the ground in front of him and to his horror, it shattered into a hundred pieces.

The golden mist leaked all over but began to take shape before his very eyes. While that was going on, Harry turned to look between that and the mess in front of him. The pieces of broken crystal ran across the ground to where the biggest fragment lay. Within seconds, the Explicatrix had reassembled itself except the scarlet crystal was missing the golden mist inside of it. When Harry looked up, he let out a shriek of fright -- a golden version of himself was staring back at him, its face expressionless. He probably would have fainted if this sort of thing hadn't happened before with Animus Speculum.

The first thing it did was speak words to him.

"A feeling of life large made small, in the far reaches of the forest hidden from us all. This relic is always close around but one must ask all where it's to be found, collecting only clues that seem sound. To know where it lies about, everything should be treated with doubt and weary should be exercised of words from a lout. The keepers know where this item does lie and its seeker they greatly wish to defy, with clues having meaning up in the sky."

Just what he needed, Harry thought irritably, he had to lurk around the forest, possibly for hours, sorting out wrong clues from right ones. Fortunately -- or not, depending on your point of view -- the golden Harry wasn't finished yet.

"First, by its smaller minions, try track down a large, talking spider. Next, consult a horse with its own rider. Do not yet think you are free. You'll then have to consult with something on the apple-bearing tree. After, it may look safe but do not then hesitate to flee. You will not get very far. You must find a blue car. This will help you escape without a scar.

"After all of this, you must ask yourself what makes you feel bliss.

"Let not take over your gall. Those who follow this wrongly will fall. To succeed it will take nothing short of your all."

From the first word, Harry was extremely scared that this was going to be an extremely cryptic riddle. To his surprise, it didn't seem all that complicated.

He had a funny feeling the "blue car" was Mr. Weasley's car that had been lurking the forest for a few years now -- long story. There weren't many doubts in his mind that the apple-bearing tree was the one he'd found just two short, painful-to-remember years ago and with word about hinkypunks, he knew where all the lies were coming from. Lastly, he didn't want to go see a giant spider named Aragog. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out what the bit about the horses with their own rider was all about nor the bit about the sound.

The golden version of himself spoke again.

"This can be simplified," it said, its face expressionless and sort of creepy. "This relic is to be found around sound. The keepers lie and defy with meanings so high in the sky. Free something on the apple-bearing tree then flee. Get very far once you've found the blue car and escape without a scar. And it's referring to the centaurs, you know, when it refers to the horses with their own riders."

Harry couldn't believe it, the Explicatrix, or whatever it was that was in front of him, had told him exactly what he needed to know.

"So I've just got to find that apple tree and -- er -- ask it something?" he asked.

The golden Harry nodded and the real Harry suddenly felt a lot better. Having had been breathing heavily for the last half hour, he now almost smiled weakly but did let out many broken, relief-bringing exhales of breath.

"Yes," said the golden Harry, "but there's one more thing after."

This didn't worry Harry much; just a few moments ago, he didn't know anything at all about what he had to do. However, something sounded strange. It all sounded too simple. The Explicatrix answered his question before he asked it, though.

"The other champions were only given up to finding Aragog."

"Raides, don't say anything," the real Harry warned her, practically reading her mind.

"If you want a bit of help..."

"I don't want Karkaroff to think you're helping me, that's all."

"Why do you care about him?"

"Do you two want to sit there or should we get on with it?" snapped the golden Harry.

Raides broke into laughter. She may have found it funny that the golden Harry was just as irritable as the real one was right now, but...

"Fine," said Harry, "come on. What else do I have to do?" he asked his golden copy.

"I don't know," it replied. "Something about what makes you feel bliss. We have to find Aragog first."

"Ah, just what I needed," Harry muttered, "to see him again... Raides," he said pointedly as she leapt into the air, falling on his hand as the great golden and scarlet staff.

"I thought you aren't supposed to be using me?" asked Raides suspiciously. "Won't your wand make do? I'm sure he was explicitly ordered not to eat anyone or he'd probably be killed."

She had a point, Harry admitted to himself, but he wasn't going to tell her that. Well, that and holding her made him feel a whole lot safer. Something told him Voldemort wasn't exactly going to come and stab him right here right now but, nevertheless...

The three of them walked through the forest. In just five minutes time, the golden Harry spotted a group of fifteen or so spiders scuttling along the ground and they immediately went into pursuit. Just as he recognized it, the spiders led them into a darker part of the forest and evey now and then they could see a much larger spider, perhaps three or four feet in length. Harry avoided looking at these; it made him grip Raides more firmly and at one point she yelled at him.

"Get lost, human, you are upsetting me," clicked the unmistakable voice of Aragog.

As Harry got closer, he could see Sebastian looking ready to make a run for it and Aragog himself, stuck to a humongous and very gross web attached to several trees high up in the air. Sebastian's fear wasn't unfounded. Aragog was a very large black spider, perhaps ten feet tall with eight legs and many eyes. His legs were extremely hairy in a sickening fashion.

"G-good-bye," said Sebastian shakily and he looked almost as scared at the sight of Harry as he did at the sight of Aragog. He ran off, looking like he'd never come back to Hogwarts if you payed him.

"He's not going to finish the task, you mark my words," Raides commented, grinning a very big grin.

"He'll find a way," Harry insisted, "he's just that annoying."

"I'm right," said the golden Harry.

Raides laughed again as the real Harry said, "Shut up and come on."

"Who's there?" clicked Aragog impatiently; he'd obviously heard them bickering.

Harry, not quite sure if he should say, said just, "I'm here for the first clue."

"Ah," clicked Aragog, as if recalling a bad memory, "you are Harry Potter."

Aragog moved his many legs very fast and jumped down from his nest. Making Harry feel unecessarily scared, Aragog then scuttled right up to him and Harry found his legs frozen. But Aragog was blind, how could he know where Harry was standing?

"You're not blind anymore, are you?" asked Raides.

"No," clicked Aragog, turning to face the talking small lion's mouth. "And you must be the Staff of Cybele."

"Indeed," said Raides.

"I've been given sight by several kind wizards in exchange for not killing anyone who enters this hollow," said Aragog rather nastily.

Harry didn't think this was a fair exchange and thought that Aragog shouldn't want to kill any humans, blind or not. It was his opinion that there were many more bigger things to eat.

Suddenly, Aragog looked at the golden Harry as if just realizing it was there. He stared between the two of them and it was almost funny to see a monster such as Aragog look confused, Harry thought.

"Harry's clue," explained Raides. "It made a golden version of himself that told him what to do."

"Ah," clicked Aragog, still staring between the two of them.

Since neither the golden Harry nor the real one felt like moving much with Aragog so close to them, Raides carried on conversation.

"So what's the first clue?"

Aragog fixed his gaze at the real Harry and picked up one of his long, hairy legs to lift the bangs of the shaking boy in front of to get a good look at the scar he had. This made Harry so stiff he wasn't quite sure if even the sight of Voldemort would make him run. Small spiders were fine but spiders the size of Muggle monster trucks were not.

Harry instinctively took a step backwards. Aragog, seeming to care about the fact that Harry was staring at him with wide eyes, backed away and said, "Next, consult a horse with its own rider."

"I already have that one," Harry told him.

There was a pause in which Harry could hear several spiders scuttling around him and he didn't want to look down after he felt something heavy step on his foot. He silently felt like there was no way he would ever enter this forest again for any reason whatsoever.

"I did not give it to you," clicked Aragog slowly, apparently confused. Did he not know that Harry's clue was going to give him this? "How do you have it?"

"I told him," said the golden Harry.

"What else did you say?" asked Aragog curiously.

The golden Harry recited the entire riddle.

"So," said Aragog haughtily, "you've given him the entire riddle."

"W-wait, the entire riddle?" asked Harry defensively, defending the golden Harry; Aragog made it sound as though this was going to disqualify him.

This smelled highly of unfairness. What say did he have in being given the entire riddle or not? None of the other champions spent months and months on their clue to find absolutely nothing on it. Not to mention, of course, having the stress of... other things... piled on top without any forgiveness. He could see it clearly now: Karkaroff was going to work the Explicatrix into some sort of trickery by Dumbledore. The mere thought of this made him angry. None of them could have known what the Explicatrix was going to do.

"He had no choice," stated Raides firmly to Harry's relief, jerking her head to the Explicatrix in Harry's other hand. "As soon as the Explicatrix broke, the golden Harry formed. The first thing it did was give him the entire riddle."

"I see," said Aragog, still sounding delighted. "Very well. You already know what you have to do. Go."

Perhaps being given the entire riddle in one go wasn't the best thing afterall. "You already know what you have to do," echoed Aragog's voice in his head still, ten minutes after having had seen him.

"You already know what you have to do," Harry muttered soundlessly to himself. "What are you, anyway?" Harry bursted out angrily at his golden copy, shaking his fists in anger.

"I am the Explicatrix," it stated. This sounded like a line of dialog out of some grade F science fiction movie to Harry.

"Good answer," Harry mumbled.

"Well," Raides asked, "what DOES make you feel bliss?"

"Let's go find the centaurs," said Harry hastily; he didn't know and it hurt to think about it. A lot of things did but he didn't have a chance in Azkaban of, well...

Harry instinctively followed the golden Harry, forgetting that he had no idea where the centaurs were going to be. They weren't hard to spot, however, being human-like from the waist up and horse-like from the waist down. He checked his golden watch; he'd been wandering around in the forest for about fourty-five minutes. Even if he did have the entire riddle, it didn't seem to be helping much. Something didn't click right with him. Why had he been given the entire riddle?

"Could you repeat the thing again to me?" he asked.

The golden Harry did so and Harry had to ask himself something. Only two parts of it really referred to one thing: the first two sentences and the question at the end. He had a wild thought of the thing that made him feel bliss being the plaque dangling from his neck which sparkled subtly in the dim sunlight coming in from the treetops. How could that be it? He hadn't had any relief from holding it for so long it wasn't even funny; he'd just been holding it out of habit. Actually, instead of feeling better, now whenever he held it like he was now, it just made him feel guilty. He quickly let go of it. Far removed from liking it, he felt like taking it off, dropping it in the forest and leaving it there.

Seeing Raides' tiny mouth start to open, he said, "I know I know. It's a bad habit."

She sneered at him.

"Harry Potter," said a centaur gravely once the three of them finally found their target.

He was just as Harry remembered him with his white-blonde hair and palomino body. He looked slightly older than Harry remembered him but he had to just accept it, it had been a while since they last met. Okay, just since last year, Harry thought irritably...

"Hello, Firenze," said Harry gloomily.

"We have been expecting you," said Firenze. "Come, follow me."

"You've been -- been expecting me?"

Harry followed Firenze into a clearing and inside were two more centaurs, which he recognized as Ronan and Bane and a fourth centaur, who looked strangely female, whom he didn't recognize. Her fur was colored dark blue and she had lavender-colored hair. She was noticeably smaller than any of the other centaurs.

"I am Gemma," she said, her voice just as sorrowful as Ronan's though not quite as deep. "So I finally get to meet the famous Mr. Potter --"

"Please," Harry interrupted her, "leave the 'famous' part out. I'm not so famous anymore," he told Gemma, casting a weary eye over the four centaurs in front of him.

The golden Harry took off its cloak and sat upon it, getting ready for what the real Harry had a feeling was going to be a long talk.

"Wait a minute," said Raides suddenly, "this was your idea, wasn't it?" She was looking straight at Bane. "Harry, let me go," she ordered.

Harry threw her up in the air and as she soared, the usual misty gray covered her, revealing the great golden and scarlet lion, landing gingerly on her four paws. Her transformation scared three of the four centaurs; Gemma was looking rather excited. Raides entered her "protect Harry" mode and stood in front of him, her teeth bared, looking ready to pounce if any of the centaurs showed any sign of wanting to hurt him. This filled Harry with a fresh wave of uneasiness.

"Raides, m-maybe you should sit this one out," said Harry in a small voice.

"Very well, young ancient," she growled, her teeth still bared.

"And don't call me that."

"Fine."

She shot the centaurs an angry look and sat down next to the golden Harry.

"This was our idea, yes, because we have been hiding important information from you we feel we should tell you," said Ronan, looking uncertainly at Raides. He didn't seem to think it was a good idea to move, so he didn't.

At Ronan's words, however, Harry felt a distinct shock to his brain. Part of it was the obvious wonder of why they had to meet in the forest. The other part of it was, if it was so important, why didn't they tell me earlier! Harry thought furiously.

"And you had to set a task in the forbidden forest so I could talk to you in peace, is that it?" said Harry, now feeling furious for having the centaurs set him on a wild goose chase. "Or in pieces, should something have gotten to me!"

"I do believe that most monsters, if not all of them, Harry Potter, would be more afraid of Raides than any beast lurking in these trees," said Firenze.

Raides let out a soft, rumbling growl that now frightened Gemma.

"So? What is it?" Harry asked. He was now feeling far safer than he ever had at any point in the forbidden forest, not the least of which being because the centaurs told him that Raides was more fearsome than anything he'd come across.

"We had been protecting the Explicatrix for some time now --" said Bane.

"Some three hundred years," said Gemma quietly.

"-- and we would trust no one with it but you."

Now Harry understood. It had been them who had given Dumbledore the Explicatrix in the first place. It had been them who suggested the second task take place in the forest. It had been them who suggested Dumbledore give Harry the Explicatrix for his second Triwizard clue. Had it been them who suggested to Dumbledore to have a second Triwizard Tournament in the first place? Above all his questions though, he wanted to know most why he couldn't just have gone to see them some other way. Why couldn't they just tell Dumbledore to have him meet them during a Care of Magical Creatures class or something? And talk in private at some place on the edge of the forest where he didn't have to be scared like he'd been just a minute ago? Best of all was why didn't they seem to think that Dumbledore could be trusted with this information directly? Was the Explicatrix that dangerous?

"You're the reason for having the tournament this year, aren't you?" Harry began as if it was a big conspiracy to have him lose his mind. Bane nodded. "You gave me the Explicatrix! I SPENT MONTHS ON THIS BLOODY THING! I COULD KILL YOU!" Harry bursted out angrily.

Raides seemed to have taken this as a go-ahead to catch an early lunch. Letting out one large growl, she positively sprang from her position, her powerful legs carrying her rapidly through the air. Harry, as much as he disliked Ronan, Bane, Firenze and Gemma at the moment, didn't wish them to be eaten.

"RAIDES, NO!" he bellowed, stupidly throwing his free arm out, his fingers pointing up at Raides flying through the air.

No one, especially Harry, expected an unseen force to send Raides soaring right over the centaurs she was aiming for. Instead, she flew right past them and was headed right for a humongous oak tree. She flung her tail out in front of herself like a hook and as she approached the tree, wrapped her powerful tail around it. Raides spun around the tree once, then planted her four paws on the trunk and pushed hard against it. The top of the tree where her tail had been holding on broke off and she flew against the middle of another tree, knocking it clean down, landing cat-like on the forest floor.

In all of Harry's staring at Raides, when he looked at the spot where Ronan, Bane, Firenze and Gemma were just a moment ago, they had gone. The only thing Raides seemed to care about was that her lunch had gotten away.

"Raides!" Harry barked indignantly at her. Both of his hands were clenched into fists and he shook them once hard in an attempt to relieve his current frustrations. "They were about to tell me something important!"

"But you said --"

"I said I could, I didn't say I wanted to!" he shrieked.

"As you wish, young ancient --"

"And I also said don't call me that," said Harry rather rapidly, his fists unclenching and his face turning slightly pinkish.

"I -- forgot," said Raides stiffly.

Harry stood there, Raides brushing up against his leg, looking sidelong at the golden Harry, trying to gather himself. He'd just been denied some real important information and wondered whether he'd had the chance to get it again. Were they going to tell him what the Explicatrix was exactly? And maybe something about Raides? Anything about Raides would come in handy at this point, he thought...

"You," said Harry to his golden replica, trying to make up his mind on what to do next, "bring us to that stupid tree. I want to get out of here already..."

Before they set off, Harry gave the Explicatrix to Raides to hold in her tail and took off the Order of Merlin plaque, holding it in his hand. For all the good it did, he might as well have been holding a tree branch -- or a very thorny flower.

The tree was exactly as he remembered it, though he wished he didn't. Out of a strong feeling of almost wanting to reminisce, he grabbed onto an apple that looked like it had teeth marks in it. As his fingers closed in on it, a vision of one of the things he'd done flashed before his eyes.

At one point during his time, he sat upon the mud-covered ground because it had just rained and thought about what Mrs. Weasley could possibly have gone through thinking he was dead. This had put a nice big mud stain on his cloak that took several washes to come out.

That felt strangely like what the Book of Memories did to him several times though not exactly; his eyes hadn't mysteriously forced shut like the Book could do to him. As his fingers let go of the apple, he recognized it: he'd once bitten into it and dropped it because it tasted rotten. Hedwig, his snowy owl, would now have been happy; there was a worm crawling out of it.

"Young -- Harry, take a look at this," said Raides which made Harry jump.

Harry looked at what she was pointing her tail at and recognized a wood nymph, green like the grass, slightly transparent and no taller than a foot. Harry could probably tear one of its wings off though he didn't doubt it would hurt a lot. It didn't do much more than smile serenely at him and point one of its small fingers behind him. When he turned around, for a second he thought he was having a nightmare but it was just Mr. Weasley's car which had been running wild in the forest for five years now.

"Remember, child," said the wood nymph in the kindest voice Harry had ever heard, "'tis not the object."

When Harry turned around to see where the wood nymph had gone, for he heard a swooshing noise and something big behind him, this time truly did think he had stepped into a nightmare. The tree was gone and in its wake was something so horrible all he caught sight of before turning around was a three inch thick black cloak.

"Leithfold," said Raides simply, running in between both Harrys.

"I thought they only live in tropical climates," said Harry in an unnaturally high voice, his heartbeat almost as loud as his feet pounding against the forest ground as he stampeded towards the car. Its doors flung open and he wasted no time in getting in. "Nevermind this task," Harry went on, not looking in the rear-view mirror as the car's gas pedal went to the floor, "I can't do it and I don't care."

"Bet you a hundred galleons Bane had something to do with that," said Raides.

Through the forest the car went, Harry clutching the plaque so very tight, banging into trees as they went and going extremely fast. For a few moments, Harry was thinking about what was going to happen to Adrianne and Sebastian. Before he thought about doing anything, he remembered what had happened the last time he went back to save people: he felt like a complete idiot because it wasn't at all necessary.

Just to check on his worries, he asked, "Think Adrianne and Sebastian are gonna be all right?"

"Harry, would Dumbledore ever put someone's life in danger for a stupid tournament?" Raides asked back which made Harry feel like an idiot but not like a complete one.

In no time at all, the car had them back at the edge of the forest, near Hagrid's hut. He opened the car door, stepped out and for some reason, Dumbledore was beaming at him. The crowd of students were all sitting in stands that rose fairly high into the air. The judges, Madam Maxime, Karkaroff, Ludo Bagman, Percy Weasley and Dumbledore, were all sitting at one raised table draped in gold, their wands at the ready. Harry quickly put the necklace in his hand back on.

When the golden Harry stepped out of the Weasley car, most everyone drew a gasp of breath. Dumbledore quickly stopped his beaming as he stood up to stare.

"The Explicatrix," Harry explained as he made his way over to Sirius, "it -- did something funny."

"I see," Harry barely heard Karkaroff mutter and he knew it was only a matter of time before Karkaroff started plotting against Dumbledore.

Sirius came jogging the rest of the way with Cho at his side. She was looking strained, as though the sight of Harry scared her, though mostly happy. Harry, who still didn't know why Dumbledore had been beaming at him, stupidly pointed the Expliciatrix at the golden Harry. Instantly, the golden copy became mere golden mist as the Explicatrix broke into a hundred pieces in his hand. Harry sort of expected this but no one else sure did.

The golden mist collected in his hand and, very quickly, the Explicatrix repaired itself, sealing the golden mist inside.

"Marks!" someone grunted happily and Harry wheeled around to see Ludo Bagman jumping up.

"Marks?" asked Harry blankly. He quickly shot the judges' table a glance; Karkaroff was looking conspirative. "What marks? I didn't even finish the task!"

"Sure you did," said Sirius, clapping him genially on the shoulder. "All the champions are told to come out with their most prized possession in their hands."

Harry stared. And he blinked. Cho took this moment to hug him but he didn't feel like doing the same because he was really confused. She pulled away as Harry asked, "What?"

"The necklace, Harry," Sirius told him. "You were holding it when you came out!"

"You've got to be kidding me --"

"Look, I'm sure Dumbledore will have some better explanation for you later in the school year, eh?" said Sirius, smiling (sort of) and turning Harry towards the golden stands. "Come on, we're waiting for the rest of the champions to get out. Have something to eat."

Harry scowled at him for this.

He wasn't particularly up to eating but Cho had been carrying toast for him; Sirius said he hadn't eaten any breakfast. Admittedly, the time up until the task was much worse than he was feeling now though he still had to give Dumbledore a piece of his mind for putting him through that.

So now Harry felt slightly relieved, though only slightly, for all the worry he'd been through all that time leading up to the second task. The wait, the time up until, had been at the point where if it was any longer, he felt he just might come to pieces. Now, as he sat down with Cho and Sirius next to Hermione, he let out a breath of relief. It was over and it felt like he'd just been put back together with crazy glue, some extra used in the spots where he felt looser. For now, Harry was content with the knowledge that he didn't have to worry about any more tasks until the third one.

"Harry, they're putting up your score!" cried Cho.

"I'm just so glad this task is over..." Harry admitted aloud. This caused Sirius to clap him on the back. Raides settled at his feet, munching on the grass.

Dumbledore raised his wand and drew a number nine in the air with it.

"Nine?" asked Harry blankly.

"You look surprised?" Cho said to him.

"It's just -- I dunno, I really didn't do anything in there..."

Madam Maxime rose her wand next and a ribbony sort of eight shot out of it. Bagman wasted no time in making a nine shoot out of his wand too, grinning broadly.

"How are they marking us, anyway?"

"Speed," said Hermione to Harry's right shortly, then she went back talking to Ron.

"And depending on how scratched up you are," said Sirius, grinning. "No one else can complete the task while one of you has the car, they did that on purpose so there wouldn't be any odd ties."

"Oh and did anyone tell you how they made us get out of there right quick once we finally get the thing?" asked Harry, feeling slightly angry for it. Sirius shook his head. "A wood nymph turns into a Leithfold!"

Cho's mouth fell open as Harry turned his head towards the judge's table again to see his next score. Out of Percy's wand came a seven. Harry didn't expect anything very high from Percy, especially not when Percy happened to think that Harry had killed his dad...

"Looking good so far!" said Sirius happily. "What happened in there anyway?"

"I really don't know," Harry started to explain. His frustration over the Explicatrix was boiling inside of his stomach as he tried to make sense of all that had happened since he entered the forest. "I was walking for a while then just smashed the Explicatrix on the ground."

"I thought that, you know, you can't break it?"

"It got weird there," Harry went on. "I just tried a Strength Charm and when I threw it, it just broke. And then that golden missed formed into that -- that golden me... The first thing it did was give me the entire riddle. Aragog said we were only supposed to have the first few sentences?" Harry found himself asking before he knew what he was saying, his curiosity winning over.

"The entire riddle?" screeched Hermione and Cho at the same time. Harry didn't know who to look at so he didn't look at either of them and instead turned to Sirius. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Karkaroff consulting with Dumbledore which explained away the delay in him giving Harry a score.

"You really weren't supposed to get the entire riddle... Frankly, Dumbledore didn't even know how the Explicatrix was going to help you though he seemed set on it helping you out somehow. We -- nor him -- just didn't know how or what," admitted Sirius.

"I see," said Harry conspiratively, "so he was just banking on it helping, not really knowing if it was going to or not?"

Dumbledore and Karkaroff were exchanging some loud words and Harry could make out a few of them. Among them were, "lies," "deceit," "trickery," and "one-sided."

"Er," said Sirius, looking uncomfortable, "that was the plan, yes."

Harry turned his head back towards the judge's table to see how Karkaroff felt about all of this. Now he was on his feet.

Hermione seemed to have more to say because she turned to Harry and said, "It must have been confusing or awkward, wasn't it? I mean, given the entire riddle, you didn't really know what to do? You were supposed to run around from Aragog, to the centaurs and think a little bit to get one last part of the riddle that would help you along with what the final answer was. Only then were you supposed to go to the tree." As per her usual prerogative, Hermione hit it spot on. "You were first supposed to ask the hinkypunks about what to do first." Harry ignored them completely. "From them, you were to get that you had to visit Aragog. He tells you to visit the centaurs. Your very first clue was only supposed to tell you what you had to do and where the task was and help you find your way around."

So that was why Sebastian had been given something that resembled a wizard's compass. And did Adrianne's clue do something on the likes of that Muggle game, hot or cold, with its glowing? Adrianne's clue probably came with another riddle, though Harry had a feeling Sebastian's came with a simple note telling him what, when and where.

Striding over like a hungry lion, though not quite as fierce as Raides, Harry suddenly found Karkaroff upon him, his cold eyes livid. Harry wondered now whether he'd been practicing smiling in Dumbledore's presence because during the last tournament, every time he did the smile didn't exactly extend up to his eyes. This year supposedly, so far it had.

"You," he said coldly to Sirius, his fists at his sides and standing quite rigid. Karkaroff made a motion with one of his hands near his chin as though he still that had twirlable mustache. Realizing his mistake, he put it down. "Has Potter told you about his clue?" Sirius exchanged a glance with Harry and then nodded. Karkaroff then beckoned Sirius to follow him back to the judge's table where there were some more loud words exchanged.

Harry's anger was continuing to mount. No one, not even Dumbledore, could have predicted what the Explicatrix was going to do. How did it even know what the riddle was? How did it even know what was going on? How did it know its way around the forest so well? What if Harry got stuck in there and had to spend hours finding his way back? He couldn't Disapparate with Raides any longer. Harry then suddenly remembered the scene with the centaurs and made a mental note to mention them to someone later, whether it be Sirius, Cho or Hermione. It didn't know everything perfectly, it seemed, because it didn't know it had helped Harry to cheat.

Or at least that's what he thought; he wasn't quite sure. The situation was all too strange and there were many questions Harry had that he didn't think anyone would be able to answer. The most important question was probably, well, that one he'd have a go at answering himself. Bane, Ronan, Firenze and Gemma had probably told Dumbledore to trust them that it would help Harry. Or had they given it to him without telling him a thing and suggesting they give it to Harry to figure out? They knew, they had to know. After a few second's thought, Harry had no doubts that the centaurs knew exactly how the Explicatrix works. As an aside, he was furious at Raides for trying to eat them, scaring them away, when they were about to tell him something important. He shot her an angry look that she didn't see, her eyes now closed. She probably thought the sound of Karkaroff being angry was music and there was indeed a dreamy look on her golden face.

Harry always knew that Karkaroff never really liked Dumbledore and was always hot and bothered by something. During the last Triwizard Tournament, Karkaroff accused Dumbledore of trying to hurt Viktor Krum purposely. It had been Krum who pulled Harry aside near the forest to ask him something. Seemingly out of the shadows, Barty Crouch Senior had come. The end result was Harry running to get Dumbledore and Krum had been stunned by Crouch in his absence. What Karkaroff was doing now came as no surprise to Harry. Clearly, he thought Dumbledore purposely cheated by giving Harry the Explicatrix.

"You!" Harry heard Karkaroff bellow. There was the sound of footsteps before Karkaroff was upon him once again, his face still livid. "You admit to outright cheating!"

Harry didn't look up at Karkaroff, using the fact that he still hadn't finished his toast as an excuse to tend to it. Cho's gaze nervously moved over towards Ron and Hermione. Hadn't Karkaroff agreed to Harry being given the Explicatrix as part of the tournament's final paper work? Or at least something of the sort.

"Igor!" Dumbledore bellowed back. "I have told you --"

"Dumbledore! You said yourself --"

"Professor Karkaroff!" the voice of Madam Maxime cut in, "you --"

"I will not hear any of this! Potter was given the entire riddle! By a clue that Dumbledore suggest he be assigned to!"

"Karkaroff! Did you not sign ze agreement! Did you not agree to zees terms!"

Harry found it hard to continue chewing without standing up and joining Dumbledore, Karkaroff and Madam Maxime in their shouting.

"Who gave him this clue?" Karkaroff demanded though he obviously knew the answer. "You did, Dumbledore --"

Raides spoke up from her resting spot.

"No, he didn't, Igor," Raides stated dismissively, not caring that her tone was as if Karkaroff was really, really stupid. "It was the centaurs."

Cho, Hermione, Dumbledore, Karkaroff and Madam Maxime all swiveled their heads towards the golden and scarlet lion lying at Harry's feet. There was a moment's silence, and then --

Karkaroff simply made a loud, very obvious nose of dissent and said, "AND NOW YOU ADMIT TO CONSORTING WITH MAGICAL CREATURES!"

Harry couldn't take anymore. He wanted Karkaroff to just disappear or at the very least, hush up, shoot a zero out of his wand and be done with it. Harry's body went rigid and he couldn't tell if he was about to blow up from his anger or pass out from either a distinct lack of blood to his brain or from the heat clouding up his head. One way or another, a numbness ran up and down his spine and the last thing he knew was falling backwards, a sharp pain in his lower back and his head painfully hitting blades of grass.

When he awoke, he wasn't sure what was going on. Everyone was staring at someone else to the left of him but he didn't turn to see who; he just shot a zero out of the odd-looking wand he was holding. A second later, his body went numb and once more he passed out. Upon awaking again, Harry knew exactly what had happened.

In his anger, he had possessed Karkaroff. In the middle of the day. With the entire school watching.

Sitting up, Harry looked frantically around. Everyone was looking at him like someone had died and Harry almost wished someone had because he just simply couldn't see how possessing someone could be such a horrible thing. The mouths of Sirius, Cho, Hermione, even Ron and Dumbledore were all hanging open. Just about every single student that had been sitting was now standing and there was nothing to be heard but a ringing silence. Or perhaps the impending sounds of everyone shouting, "Dark wizard!"

No one seemed to know what to do. In one swift movement, Sirius pushed his way through Dumbledore and Karkaroff, snatched Harry by the upper arm and pulled -- hard. Harry stumbled on his feet as Sirius practically dragged him back to the castle. He rubbed the back of his head; it was stinging where he had hit it. 


	44. The Worst Day

Chapter 44: THE WORST DAY 

Despite everything, Harry was glad of one thing: that Sirius was pulling him away. Harry didn't want to see the reaction of Ron, Hermione or Dumbledore -- and especially Karkaroff.

When Sirius managed to do more than mouth soundlessly, Harry heard him say, "Harry, what'd you do that for?"

Harry's immediate reaction was outrage.

"You make it sound like I did it on purpose!"

"There's no denying you did do it --" Sirius began sheepishly.

Harry wrenched his arm from Sirius' grip and stopped walking. Sirius stopped abruptly and was staring at Harry like someone else had died. This look only made Harry feel worse.

"Look, I didn't know I could speak Parseltongue!" Harry shouted, feeling the onset of a vehement rage. "What else don't I know about myself!" He was feeling distinctly uncomfortable and the look Sirius was giving him, the one saying he didn't really know what to do, wasn't helping.

"You can --"

"Like I want to know right now," said Harry crossly, staring sharply at Sirius.

"Sorry..."

They had not walked any farther than a few corridors. Taking a seat on the bottom of a staircase, Harry rested his elbows on his upper legs, gripping his elbows with the opposite hands. He wasn't looking at Sirius and instead was giving Sirius' shoes a cold look, as though angry at them too, although they hadn't done anything to him -- yet. To Harry's almost pleasure, Raides had kept quiet so far. She probably seemed to think that she wouldn't help any by speaking.

Sirius took a deep breath and then said, "I wouldn't be surprised if some people start thinking that I'm in this with you." Sirius made it sound as though it was some sort of big crime they'd been planning for years. "I would stay, I really would like to, but now I really have got to go back with Lupin and Snape."

"And what do I do about the fresh wave of people calling me a --"

"Dark wizard," Sirius cut in, "or Voldemort's supporter, I know. You'll just have to ignore them --"

At this, Harry looked up and shouted, "It's kind of hard to ignore them when they're muttering darkly about you in the corridors everywhere you go!"

Sirius, who a minute ago was looking proud of himself, now fell silent again, realizing that what he said perhaps wasn't the best thing in the world to say. He was just about to give it another go when Dumbledore spotted them, also looking like someone else had died.

Another thing Harry was glad of was that Sirius spoke to Dumbledore, letting Harry's fragmented thoughts collect in his head. He didn't think they'd ever become one, which possibly would have let him answer the question that Dumbledore asked him ("Can't you control it?").

"Really, Dumbledore, he didn't even know he could do it until a few months ago," said Sirius matter-of-factly which made Harry feel a tiny bit better. "We really should have told him on the outset. I don't see a reason when I look back now..."

"That really was stupid." Raides piped up from her resting place. "And didn't Ron suggest Harry practice it?"

"That would have meant sacrifices on your and Hermione's part," said Sirius, making Harry feel bad again. "I hardly think --"

"I hardly think," Dumbledore cut in swiftly, which was lucky because Raides was staring daggers at Sirius, "that practicing possession to the point of total control would have helped. In my experience, it requires many more months than we would have had." And this brought Harry somewhere in between Sirius' and Raides' words.

"How is Karkaroff taking it?" asked Raides, reading Harry's mind.

"As we speak he's heading to the Owlery to inform the Ministry," said Dumbledore gravely.

Harry's stomach lurched. He moved his elbows farther out, now feeling sick to his stomach. How long would it be before members of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad came personally to ship him off to Azkaban? Or worse yet, just kill him on the spot? He had once heard Cornelius Fudge talking about them. When Hagrid suggested he would beat up the then-thought-to-be-murder Sirius Black with his bare hands, Fudge said that no one except Hit Wizards from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad were trained to deal with him. Harry had a sudden picture of two wizards in black robes, each carrying either a long wand or a short staff in dark sun glasses.

"And what's the Ministry probably going to do?" Raides continued.

Dumbledore, who so far had his hands neatly folded in front of himself, looking remarkably calm in Harry's opinion, now stopped the corner of his mouth as it twitched consulsively. Did the thought of Mr. Fudge make him angry? thought Harry incredulously.

"All of us who stand here," Dumbledore began, "know that possession is among the foulest abilities a wizard or witch could have." Harry now put his head between his knees, the spit he'd been swallowing fighting to come up his throat. "There might very well be a trial if Karkaroff gets his way and by the look of him when I managed to get away, he just might."

A small voice in Harry's head, which unmistakably belonged to Raides, suggested he possess Dumbledore and go talk to Karkaroff himself. Harry ignored it; he wasn't about to go and violate anyone else's trust.

"Harry," Dumbledore said (Harry didn't look up), "I daresay you'd rather not be at such a trial and while it has happened before that the accused has not attended his or her own trial, I also daresay keeping you out of this one in particular will be difficult indeed."

Harry, too sick to nod, grunted to show he agreed. His head was pounding. His heart was thumping painfully. Above all, he didn't want to go to Azkaban. As long as he had Dumbledore, he knew everything would be all right... as long as he had Dumbledore... He hadn't failed Harry in six years (except perhaps the hitch with dropping him off at the Dursleys) and Harry didn't have any reason to believe that Dumbledore would fail him now.

"So what do we do now?" Sirius asked of Dumbledore.

Harry looked up for a moment but felt his stomach losing the battle with keeping his food inside of it and went back to his previous position.

"Harry should avoid running into Professor Karkaroff," Dumbledore suggested, a grim note of amusement in his voice. "He took being possessed as a personal insult and thought it was a mistake that you gave yourself a zero instead of a ten. I don't think I need to say that, for one, there will probably never be another Triwizard Tournament, and two, he wants the rest of the tournament called off or the Hogwarts champion disqualified."

"Either way, I don't think he has much a very big chance of winning with Sebastian as his champion," Raides commented, laughing. "He ran from Aragog and I swear if he really was a dog, he'd've had his tail between his --"

"On a side note," Dumbledore cut in again, "none of the other champions managed to complete the task."

"I didn't either," said Harry in a defeated voice. "It was just luck that this stupid necklace was what I needed."

"Harry --"

"Save it," said Harry shortly.

He took the necklace off, and as he held it in his fingers, nothing came over him, no sweeping calmness, no brilliant shower of relief. Then he threw it on the stone-flagged floor as though it was going to poison him -- more. Suddenly again he remembered the conversation with Bane, Ronan, Firenze and Gemma but it appeared he had thrown his voice away too. Instead, he told Raides inside his head.

Raides then explained to Dumbledore and Sirius what had happened. When she was finished, Sirius was staring at her like she was going to kill him where he stood and Dumbledore was looking scandalized. Also, Raides took another stab at telling Harry to possess Dumbledore but he ignored it again.

"How, exactly, does the Explicatrix function?" asked Dumbledore.

"Harry pointed his wand at himself, shouted, 'Exsolotum enodo --'"

"I didn't say that!" Harry was able to exclaim indignantly.

"Yes you did --"

"What d'you mean, 'you didn't say that,'" said Sirius suddenly, sounding alarmed. "Are you trying to tell me --"

Harry finally looked up, his sickness leaving him in face of now Sirius thinking that he has the Mark of Ancients.

"Go on," Harry taunted in a soft, deadly voice, "go on and say it."

Sirius hesitated. He hesitated too long, though, and seemed to decide it was best not to say it. He turned to Dumbledore for help.

"And what happened next?" asked Dumbledore, Harry putting his head between his knees again. Raides walked to Harry, apparently asking permission to speak to Dumbledore. Harry nodded at her, though very subtly.

"Harry threw it at the ground and it smashed to pieces," Raides explained. "It was like Animus Speculum except, as you saw, it was gold. I imagine it would probably have been another color if Harry had been in Slytherin --"

"And what did it do?"

"The crystal reformed, reminding me of the spell Frustum Compingo --"

"But I never used that before, how did you --?" asked Harry slowly.

"Before we could even gape at it for too long," Raides continued, in a matter-of-fact tone, "it blurted out the entire riddle. It would appear that it knew everything Harry didn't and had to figure out. What he wasn't supposed to know, all except for the riddle of course, it didn't. It knew exactly what was going on." Here, Raides let her tail clutching the Explicatrix fall into Harry's view, who's head was still between his knees. With a weak hand, he pushed it away. "And why would they keep information on what it does from you, anyway?" she added, voicing what Harry had been wondering and by the look on Sirius' face, what he had been wondering as well.

It was a change of heart for her, looking concerned about someone else. Good or bad, Harry didn't know yet. Dumbledore, on the other hand, either didn't notice or care; he stared -- something Harry didn't often see him do -- apparently lost for an answer. Why had they kept it from him? I probably would have found out, Harry reasoned with himself bitterly, if Raides hadn't tried to eat them. He shot Raides' tail a dark look as she pulled it away.

"I don't know," said Sirius as though this was all a big conspiracy to confuse him, "this doesn't make any sense. Of every wizard on the entire planet to keep information from, why you?"

"Perhaps they don't trust it to anyone but an ancient?" suggested Raides.

"Maybe," Harry mumbled darkly.

"The more pressing issue," said Dumbledore, "though admiteddly not as important, is probably that of Professor Karkaroff. Harry, you need to speak with --"

"I'm not talking to him in person," Harry told Dumbledore firmly. "I'm not ever --"

"In that case," said Dumbledore, his voice going quiet so that Harry had to strain his ears, "then we need a way to make it so that you don't have to speak to him in person."

Did Dumbledore mean what Harry thought he meant?

"Albus... ?" asked Sirius, probably thinking along Harry's lines.

"I have not used the ability since my twenties where I accidently used it on an ant to hurl myself out of a thirty story window," Dumbledore told Sirius, recalling an apparently embarassing memory. "When I returned to my body, my mother --"

"Albus!" repeated Sirius, this time indignantly. "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?" Harry saw that Raides was grinning more broadly than she had ever been in the past half hour.

"I shall go as myself and Harry will take on your form."

"Albus -- possession?" said Sirius as though Dumbledore had gone mad -- and Harry had to agree. "What if Karkaroff finds out? What if the Ministry finds out! You'll be in trouble, too! You'll get removed!"

"What if? That's a risk I'm willing to take," Dumbledore stated firmly. "I'm sure, Sirius, as Harry's godfather, there's certain risks you're willing to take as well, aren't there?"

Harry now looked up, still feeling sick, still feeling worse than he'd ever felt in a long time but he had to see what Dumbledore was doing, what sort of look he was giving Sirius. Dumbledore wasn't glowering at him but he was wearing a look that suggested, however groundlessly, that Sirius didn't really care about Harry at all. His blues were fixed upon Sirius, his chin raised, looking down at him through his half-moon spectacles and his eyebrows were raised in question. Dumbledore's hands were also folded behind him and he was emanating that powerful something that Harry had come to know so well. After a bit of looking at Dumbledore, Harry looked down again.

Sirius' reply didn't come; Harry suspected his mouth was hanging open in disbelief or it was moving but there wasn't any sound.

"Are you telling me, then, that there are risks you are not willing to take?" Dumbledore asked, his voice still quiet.

"Albus, possession?" was all Harry heard Sirius repeat.

Harry heard footsteps, saw Dumbledore's feet and then felt his hand on his shoulder. It did very little.

"Sirius, we already stand in the face of one accusation of possession," Dumbledore began in a dangerously serious sort of voice. "I believe Harry has his own questions for Professor Karkaroff that would do well not to be asked by someone else."

Harry didn't really think this was true but wanted to hear the rest of what Dumbledore had to say so he kept quiet. But Dumbledore didn't say anything and seemed to be waiting for Sirius to reply -- and he didn't. Harry was a little more than slightly disheartened to hear the silence, which could only mean one thing: Sirius didn't think that possession was such a good idea. Harry was inclined to agree -- if the situation hadn't been so serious. If he was at least in a different appearance, Fudge and Professor Karkaroff couldn't keep accusing him.

Just say yes, Harry thought desperately, deathly afraid of what could happen should someone else find out, probably feeling just as scared about it as Sirius, just say yes...

And then, bringing a wave of relief on the order of the Order of Merlin necklace, Sirius nodded and Harry hoped that his mere thinking didn't influence the decision.

"I don't like this idea, Albus, I really don't," Sirius let Dumbledore know, an equally dangerously serious expression on his face.

"To be honest, I don't either but as we've run out of options, I don't see another way." Harry heard repeated footsteps, indicating that Sirius was spinning nervously on the spot. "One way or another, we must try to convince Professor" -- Dumbledore cleared his throat significantly as though he didn't think much of Professor Karkaroff being a professor much longer -- "Karkaroff that his life is not in danger. I myself will die before there is a death on these grounds." He spoke as though this settled the matter and so confidently that Sirius had no choice but to accept it. "There is no denying to anyone that Harry possessed him. Not many are going to see it as accidental -- despite the fact that he had given Harry a zero," he added hastily because Harry started to speak.

The next thing Harry heard, drowning out Sirius' words, was a pair of angry footsteps so loud that Harry doubted whether a hoard of angry hippos would overpower it. The bad part about it was that it was just one person: Karkaroff.

"DUMBLEDORE!" he demanded so loudly that Harry started, and then, most unfortunately, Karkaroff caught sight of him, shrieked and scampered away. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or feel worse.

Sirius was just about to open his mouth again when Madam Maxime found them, closely followed by Ludo Bagman and Cornelius Fudge.

"Sirius, I want you to take Harry to Gryffindor Tower," Dumbledore said quietly to him. "The password is Cardus Chiliarches."

As Sirius lent Harry a hand to grab to stand him up, Fudge said, "And where do they think they are going?"

"The matter does not concern you, Cornelius," stated Dumbledore. "Before you begin accusation, I suggest you take a look at the state Harry himself is in. As you can see, his complexion is very white and he can't even stand up without feeling distinctly sick. What can that tell you about how he feels?"

"Dumbledore, I demand that you step aside! Where are they going? Mr. Black, Mr. Potter! I demand that you come back here!"

Sirius didn't look like he was paying any attention. The voices trailed away as he led Harry up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower. Harry didn't think words were all that important at the moment and all he wanted to do was put as much space between himself and Professor Karkaroff as possible. Sirius didn't say anything as he led Harry along a corridor, behind a tapestry, all the while his arm around Harry, clutching his opposite shoulder and Raides walking along idly. But it was when they were getting closer to the Fat Lady that Sirius seemed to feel the need to say something that made Harry feel as good as he possibly could with the thought of being sent to Azkaban on his mind.

"Harry," he began, sounding a little apprehensive, "I've got something I've been meaning to tell you but I don't know how you're going to react."

"If it's something about Karkaroff or other," said Harry listlessly, "then I don't want to hear it."

"It's not that," Sirius said hastily. "It's, well..."

"What is it already," said Harry, not thinking it could be anything as important as worrying about spending a lifetime in Azkaban.

"I -- er -- I told Ron and Hermione but asked them not to tell you because I was saving it for the right moment."

"This is the right moment, is it?"

Harry looked sideways. Sirius looked away. Harry looked straight again.

"I -- I was thinking when, you know, this is all over and Voldemort's dead and everything" -- Sirius said this as though it was going to happen in a matter of minutes -- "and you wanted a -- a new home --"

"Didn't we already have this conversation?" said Harry, feeling a bit disgruntled, "Last I remember, Pettigrew escaped that night and the both of us nearly died."

"Well, I -- I was thinking of -- of adopting you."

Harry stopped walking, Sirius' arm sliding right off his shoulder.

"Just to make it official and everything, you know?" said Sirius hastily, as though Harry wasn't taking it the right way. He stopped walking too and turned to face Harry, who didn't know what to feel. "I mean, I know it won't be the same as having -- but if -- if you don't want to --"

He abruptly stopped talking as though it wasn't worth continuing and the both of them walked on.

"Password?" asked the Fat Lady and Sirius said, "Cardus Chiliarches," to her.

As she swung forward to admit Harry, Sirius and Raides, Raides curled up by the fire and Harry sat on one of the squashy armchairs near her. Sirius, Harry's... father? The idea sounded absurd, and yet...

"Maybe, maybe once Voldemort's -- but my name's cleared now!" exclaimed Sirius indignantly. "And I don't have to hide anymore and once Voldemort's dead, everything's going to be all right."

"Once Voldemort's dead," said Harry blandly. "Once? How do you plan on killing him? You can't!" shouted Harry, who found himself on his feet, the sick feeling in his stomach gone in the presence of rage. "He's immortal, remember?"

"Don't you remember what you learned earlier? He's not!"

"Then why doesn't someone just go and kill him already?"

"Because --" Sirius began, but he faltered. "Look," he went on, in a calmer sort of voice, "this isn't what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about you. Later, when it's all over, you're going to need a place to stay -- no, to live -- and I want you to come and live with me, have a normal life and you can live out that month before you're considered an adult, while you're still a kid..."

"My childhood was sort of stolen from me," said Harry angrily, who fell into his seat because Raides pushed him hard in the chest with her powerful scarlet tail to make him sit. "What would be the point?"

"FORGET ABOUT VOLDEMORT FOR A MINUTE!" roared Sirius -- and then he went quiet and added, "Don't you want to just think about what it's going to be like when he's dead and buried? Having a normal life? Without worrying about having to get killed every waking moment --?"

"That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

"You're not making this any easier, Harry," said Sirius flatly.

"It's not -- it's just --" Harry tried to say, but he found he couldn't continue.

"It's not what? What is it, then?"

"It's just," said Harry, stalling, trying to find the words. "I'm just sick of it, sick of everything."

"Go on," said Sirius, whose face had gone deadly serious. He seemed to have taken this as an opportunity because he stood in front of Harry, sat down, and stared up at him intensely. Harry wasn't sure if this made talking easier or not.

"I'm sick of Fudge, sick of Death Eaters, sick of dementors, sick of Raides" -- Raides didn't say anything --"and I'm sick of Voldemort!" said Harry, his voice rising.

"Well, in a few months you won't have to be sick of anything except me."

Harry wasn't quite in the mood for laughing so he went for blinking instead.

"Now come on, Harry. We have an idiot to fool -- or a fool to -- oh nevermind, just come."

Harry's stomach clenched. He almost felt like he was back in Privet Drive, that pen in his hand before he dropped it.

The interrogation with Karkaroff hadn't gone very well in Harry's opinion. Ron and Hermione, who had been so adamant about not speaking to him were suddenly speaking to him again that very night -- though Harry wasn't sure how long it was going to last and he wasted no time in telling Hermione this.

Harry had just finished telling them what had happened when everyone had been long gone from the common room.

"Tell me again what Dumbledore did?" asked Ron, who sat in what looked like a drunken stupor, not paying attention to a word of the rest of the explanation after hearing what Dumbledore did. The fire was burning low in the fireplace now. Half of Harry wanted to get the entire conversation inside Ron's head while the rest just wanted sleep.

"Come on, Ron, listen," said Hermione, whose mouth had been half open for the last hour. She didn't seem to notice she had dropped her homework and it had fluttered into the fire and burnt to a crisp.

"If you want to talk to me, then listen," said Harry testily. "Possession." Ron looked as though Harry had mortally offended him. "Sirius wasn't much for the idea either, but --" He cut himself off, not knowing how -- or carying much to, especially to them -- put something into words. This something was that, however illegal he knew it was, purposely using possession to trick someone, he wanted to see, wanted to know what Karkaroff was thinking.

"So -- so it was you into Sirius with Dumbledore talking to Karkaroff and Fudge," Hermione said, mostly to herself.

Harry nodded, saying dully, "Yes, and if it wasn't for Dumbledore, I'd be in a cell at Azkaban awaiting to be put on trial."

"And how was it that you got off?"

"Dumebledore said he spoke to me and said it was an accident, that I can't control it -- which is the truth!" cried Harry.

"And Fudge doesn't believe it?"

"Fudge is an idiot!"

"But..." Ron prompted, clearly waiting to get told the entire conversation all over again.

"HE DIDN'T DO IT ON PURPOSE!" Harry remembered roaring at Fudge, and Fudge, who thought he was speaking to Sirius, pulled a face that suggested he thought Sirius was a vicious murderer again.

"Good night," said Harry to Ron and Hermione and he left without another word, feeling slightly better at their confused faces.


	45. Serious and For the Future

Chapter 45: SERIOUS AND FOR THE FUTURE

Far from having any of Harry's intended -- or rather, wishful thinking -- effects, the end result, as he expected, was much more muttering in corridors. Now, however, they seemed to include "that Sirius fellow." A result of this was to keep Harry even more secluded. The only people he felt he could talk to anymore were (in spite of himself) Ron and Hermione as well as Ginny and Hagrid, the only people he knew would, or could at least begin to, understand.

To further upset Harry, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil had descended from Professor Trelawney's ladder, wearing extremely mournful faces that same week before class. Ever since this, they had been giving him a much improved version of the famous tragic look. Combined, it was all of this that, the very coming Sunday morning, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were talking in terse mutters to each other, except Ginny, who seemed resolute to talk normally.

Ginny had at some point rounded on Ron, who had been muttering for the past half hour over his porridge about nothing in particular. Harry suspected it was about the Order of the Phoenix as he caught words like "Fawkes" and "dad." They had all been sitting quite apart from anyone else so as to not be disturbed.

"You know you need tell me -- your own sister -- what's going on," said Ginny seriously, "if it's bothering you so much."

"Ginny, I don't think you --" Ron began, and then, "Hedwig?" as a stream of owls began to soar into the Great Hall.

Harry looked up and there, unmistakable among the mass of gray, was his snowy owl. A letter dangling from one of her legs, she fluttered onto Harry's shoulder.

"It's from Snape," said a disgusted Harry after he took the letter off and read who it was addressed to, while Hedwig helped herself to his quickly forgotten juice.

"Snape?" said Ginny blankly. "Snape -- Professor Snape?"

"Do you know any other greasy-haired git?" said Ron bitterly.

Realization seemed to slowly dawn on Ginny's face even as Harry stared at her.

"You know where he is, don't you?" she said slowly, as though spoiling a conspiracy, "and why he's not teaching here this year!"

"Ginny," Hermione began, clearly casting around for an excuse, "maybe you should --"

But Harry, who had had enough of secrets and cover-up stories, interrupted her.

"We do."

Ginny, Ron and Hermione all stared at him, Ron and Hermione looking as though they couldn't believe their ears.

"Oh," said Hermione anxiously, biting her lip.

"I'm sick of hiding stuff," said Harry, and then, leaning closer, he added, "Let's just come clean."

"Er, exactly how much --" Ginny began slowly, as though she almost regretted asking.

"A lot," said Hermione, who had dropped her vow of secrecy just as fast as Ron dropped his fork. "But maybe we shouldn't be talking about this in here."

"Right," said Ron, giving some fellow Gryffindors who looked as though they caught a few key words an angry look. Dean Thomas, among others, looked quickly away.

"Maybe we'll go to Hagrid's after breakfast," Hermione suggested. "And you can read Snape's letter to all of us, Harry," she said brightly, though she didn't look as happy as her voice sounded.

Harry's nod confirmed that, twenty minutes later, the four of them were to be found in Hagrid's cabin, trying to drink a cup each of scalding hot tea. When Hagrid asked why they said yes to tea and weren't drinking it, Hermione quickly lied that she wasn't as thirsty as she thought she was, trying to hide the fact that she looked as though her tongue was on fire. Her rather weak acting performance seemed to convince Hagrid, though she was waving air at her open mouth as she spoke. Harry, Ron and Ginny all nodded in agreement with her words.

"So, yeh want ter tell Ginny," said Hagrid, beaming, his beetle-black eyes fixed on Ginny, so as to not see Hermione use her wand to make ice cubes, stick one in her mouth and hand one to Ron, who gingerly tried to test his tea. "I wouldn't be so keen on the idea if Dumbledore hadn't given me the okay if yeh'd asked."

"The 'okay?'" asked Ron. "Since when?"

"Don't tell me yeh can' figure out when tha' was?"

Harry had the impression this might have been when Mr. Weasley passed away. Judging from the looks on Ginny's, Hermione's and now Ron's face, so did they.

"Anyway, allow me ter explain. Yer mum an' -- well, yer mum an' Bill and Charlie are just four -- three (I tell yeh, I still can' believe it) -- members of the Order of the Phoenix, an Order Dumbledore started ter stop You-Know-"

"Voldemort," interrupted Hermione in a superior tone, now suddenly with her arms folded, legs crossed and a dark twinge in her eyes, as though suggesting she, too, wanted a personal part in killing Voldemort.

"Him," said Hagrid in a small voice, and then more normally, "We work secretly, see, an' no one knows what we do unless we tell 'em; Dumbledore makes sure o' that. There's a lot I don' want ter say but yeh got the basic idea. We go on special jobs -- an' I ain't tellin' yeh what they are -- to find out what You-Know-"

"Voldemort."

"Hermione, please," said Hagrid weakly, then going normal again, "-- is up to. And no, I can' tell yeh what Sirius and Snape are up to, mostly 'cause I don't know meself. Besides, it's more'n me jobs worth to tell yeh if I did know. So, why don' yeh read Professor Snape's letter to us, Harry?"

Snape's letter, which was inside Harry's robes, gave him a foreboding feeling. Snape had never written to him before. His stomach slightly tense, he pulled it out, opened it and, with an ominous feeling, began to read aloud.

Potter,  
It has unfortunately fallen to me to write this letter. I don't know how else to put it but you should take this sitting down. It's about Black -- ("Does he ever call anyone I'm friendly with by their first name?"; "He even calls Dumbledore 'Headmaster,'" Ron reminded him.) -- We were on a rountine job, I shall call it, when Black went misplaced -- (Harry could hear Hermione draw breath) -- but turned up the next morning -- (Hermione let out a breath of relief) -- He then did this two more times and though we questioned him many times, he refused to tell us, that is, myself or Lupin, where he ran off to. This was all before he did NOT turn up the next morning. Lupin suggested to wait a week to see if Black turns up and here we are. I, though it pains me to agree having tried to withold this information unless we were sure -- ("Signature Snape," said Ron) -- regret to inform you the following.

We have not seen nor heard from Black in two weeks. Any and all owls we have sent do not come back and we, that is to say, the Order, have some of the fastest flying owls in the country. Or at least we did. Myself, Lupin and the Headmaster are all in agreement that it is safe to say Black has been killed.

We will kill the Dark Lord, Potter. Good day to you.  
Professor Snape

As Harry read, he was dimly aware of slouching lower and lower where he sat. He put the letter down, his spirits slowly ebbing away into nothingness. What did it matter that Ron and Hermione were speaking to him again? He was also dimly aware that the last two lines were in different handwriting.

Hermione, whose breaths of tension and relief had been so pronounced, seemed to think there was hope.

"Just because he's gone and they can't find him doesn't mean he's --"

"I dare you to finish that sentence," said Harry in what he hoped was his most dangerous voice. He sat up so quickly to snap at her that his glasses went askew. Fixing them, he leaned back again.

"Hermione," said Ron, whose voice had gone rather dry, "think what you're saying!"

"He's -- dead?" said Ginny absent-mindedly, an unreadable expression on her face.

"Ginny!" said Hermione sharply.

"Well our dad died too!" cried Ginny, who didn't seem to notice her reference to Sirius as Harry's father. "Why should it be so much more horrible that Sirius died?"

Ginny, who Harry had always thought had taken Mr. Weasley's death the best, was now cracking. But she doesn't understand, Harry thought to himself. Or did she? Was he blowing it all out of proportion? No, he wasn't. He only had ever had one person to really call family. How could she say such a thing? Had they kept her in the dark too long? Had not telling her anything about the Order of the Phoenix made her go all wrong? She didn't know what he knew. Yes, that must be it, Harry assured himself. And then Ron voiced what Harry thought next.

"Too many people are dying this year," he said rather quietly. "I bet it's that stupid staff."

"She does seem like a load of dark magic, doesn't she?" Harry thought aloud to himself, though he probably wouldn't have said it in Raides' presence; she was currently atop Gryffindor Tower.

"Rubbish," said Hagrid dismissively, pouring himself more tea. His tangled beard was looking a little wet. Harry didn't think it was from tea. "She saved yer life and Ron's before yeh even knew how ter use her!"

"And Harry, you're supposed to take her wherever you go!" said Hermione imploringly.

"Are you pulling a Mad-Eye and think Voldemort's -- oh shut up, Hagrid -- going to jump out of the fire and kill me now?" said Harry furiously.

Hagrid jumped so badly that the tea in his cup went everywhere. Ginny, complete with tea dripping off the hem of her robes, was staring at Hermione.

"Oh stop being childish," snapped Hermione, "it's just a name."

"Of on'y the darkest wizard ter ever live," added Hagrid, as though finishing Hermione's sentence.

"VOLDEMORT!" Harry bellowed, not caring that Hagrid, whose massive hand had been clutching the teapot, spilled the rest of the tea out on his wooden table. Hagrid, quite far from looking furious, was looking scared.

Hermione seemed to think a slight change of subject was a necessity.

"Look," she said sensibly, "maybe Sirius is just holding the owls or sending them off somewhere else. Maybe he just wants to make absolute sure no one knows where he is."

"If Dumbledore says he's dead, he's dead," said Harry, though wishing he didn't so firmly believe it. "What, d'you think Dumbledore's lying to me again?" he prompted her.

"Think sensibly, Hermione," said Hagrid, who was looking as though he was still trying to recover. "Why would Dumbledore tell Harry a dirty lie like that? And again!" he added seriously, as though Hermione was mad.

"Well, Hermione?"

Hermione couldn't seem to answer this, so she stayed silent.

Harry thought he had felt a mood of doom and gloom before but it was nothing like this. Word of Sirius' death had spread like wildfire through the school mostly due to the Daily Prophet. Harry was of the opinion that Dumbledore had something to do with the article entitled Sirius Death. Hermione, who lately was quick to agree with anything Harry said, agreed even more readily after the article. She and Ron were talking to Harry even more than usual and seemed to forget they weren't supposed to be talking to him. Professor Trelawney, who Harry expected to continue her routine of predicting his early and imminent death, was looking scandalized one morning during Divination.

She was peering down into tea cup floating on a fire, for each student was to revisit tea leaves and burn the tea away with a fire. Her face looked pained and her magnified eyes traveled from the dregs of the cup to Harry's face. Professor Trelawney was actually biting her lip, something Harry had never seen her do before. Perhaps it was Harry's temper, which was causing him to snap at anyone. Professor McGonagall took five points from Gryffindor when he snapped at her for the fifth time for transfiguring his backpack incorrectly. But now, it looked like Professor Trelawney was thinking over whether she ought to dare say he was going to die very soon. Her mouth opened, and then sound came out. Harry braced himself.

"You will live until nature takes you, my dear," she said in her usual mysterious voice. Even Parvati Patil's and Lavender Brown's mouths were wide open.

"P-professor?" said Lavender cautiously, sounding like Professor Trelawney was making a false prediction. Harry ignored her.

"And may Merlin bless you with many kids and a very happy family."

From this day forward, the entire school, which had been used to Professor Trelawney's predictions, were now seizing on the opportunity at this change of a supposed dark future.

"Twelve kids, Harry!" shouted a gloomy-looking second year happily at him on his way to Transfiguration.

In the time between Sirius' letter and now, Professor McGonagall had written something on the blackboard he had completely forgotten about: Career Advice.

"Oooh," said Hermione who had already sat down because she hadn't been held up by several people on the way, "how could I have forgotten! Professor McGonagall mentioned right after the second -- second task," she finished, staring sideways at Harry.

"Remind me," said Ron, "how's this going to go again?"

"We're going to get our times now, I suppose. It could be during a class! Oh, I hope I don't miss a hard lesson!"

"Hermione, give me a break," said Ron in an exasperated voice. "Professor McGonagall said last class you've got the highest grade average she's seen in a very long time."

Hermione tried not to look too pleased with herself but her ears turned pink all the same.

"As I hope you all remember," said Professor McGonagall, with a significant look at Harry, "your personal advisement on a career path is coming up. I will be seeing each of you on an individual basis. Your career might determine whether you continue education once you leave Hogwarts this June."

Hermione was looking excited, a feeling Harry didn't think he could muster. He'd been happy at Hogwarts and even happier at the thought, which had now been given to him twice, of living with Sirius.

As Professor McGonagall had said, pamphlets turned up in the Gryffindor common room. There was only one career Harry had ever considered. He held the Auror pamphlet in his hand and was just about to open it when Hermione burst out, "Oh, Harry, being an Auror is really difficult!"

"Really," he said blandly. "I wonder what difficult means."

Ignoring the sulky look now painted on her face, he opened it and read.

AUROR - DARK WIZARD CATCHER

Congratulations on choosing the most prestigious career the Ministry of Magic has ever devised! You will join the top ranks in the wizarding community, travel the world over, meet with top officials in the Ministry itself, study new and experimental magic and best of all, keep the peace we have managed ever since You-Know-Who! Be prepared to work hard, however. Becoming an Auror is not an easy job in itself. In order to --

Harry didn't feel like reading anymore. He closed the pamphlet and looked over at Hermione, who had her face buried in one bearing the words Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures on its front. Harry thought briefly of SPEW.

"I give up," said Ron, throwing down a pamphlet that, several years ago, his brother Bill Weasley might have looked at: Gringott's Curse-Breaker. "I don't know what I want to be. But we've all, you know, done stuff." He looked hungrily at a second Auror pamphlet.

Harry, who had just been about to put down the pamphlet, at Ron's words, stopped half-way. In truth, he had been thinking about becoming an Auror for a few years now, though he didn't think much of it when an impostor Mad-Eye Moody suggested he become one. No other life-long career had ever crossed his mind. And speaking of which, becoming an Auror would help him do the thing he really wanted to do... At this thought, Harry finished reading.

Discussion in the common room that night had been all about seventh years and their career choices. When Harry voiced his opinion, as expected, the entire common room agreed. He wasn't sure if he liked this. It made him feel as though they were just saying he could do it just because they had been agreeing with everything else he said. Glancing down the requirements again made his stomach clench.

An OWL is required in the following subjects:  
Potions Transfiguration Defense Against the Dark Arts

Top NEWT grades are required in the following subjects:  
Potions Transfiguration Defense Against the Dark Arts

He couldn't think of how he would do well in his NEWTs at all. Ever since his first class with Professor Snape, he had done horrible in Potions. His Transfiguration grades weren't quite what he felt they should be either, having failed to Transfigure his backpack into a desk; it had gone all wood-like but failed to sprout legs and looked rather like a clipboard than anything else.

"I'm never going to become an Auror," Harry mumbled to himself.

"Oh, of course you won't," said a first year sadly.

It was during a Potions lesson where they were making a very potent Cleaning Solution ("Professor Sprout tells me her second years had a very nasty time with mandrakes and she still hasn't gotten the mess out," said Professor Figg), that Professor McGonagall poked her head inside the dusty, dark dungeon room.

"Arabella, it's Potter's turn now," she said and Harry, whose Potion had been finished for the past fifteen minutes (his theory was that if he concentrated on his classes, he would stop thinking about Sirius being dead), immediately began packing. "Eager, Potter, are you?"

Harry said nothing.

"So," said Professor McGonagall, "have you given any thought to what you would like to persue after Hogwarts?"

She had directed him to her office. Her desk, which was made of wood and about four times longer than a student's normal desk, though not nearly as big as Dumbledore's, was littered with pamphlets. Various names of seventh years were scribbled across them. Hermione's was on both The Wizarding Library and The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Sitting on all of the shelves circling the room, which were covered in golden and scarlet linen, were various trinkets, such as a rainbow-colored flower, pictures of most likely her family and a model of a Pensieve. A few candles were floating in mid air around her office.

Harry stared at the award from 1796 on the shelf just behind Professor McGonagall, which was directly opposite him. It was a small, golden shield. Gryffindor had won the Triwizard Cup.

A picture of Voldemort, Sirius running from dementors, a flash of a sixteen year old Tom Riddle...

"An Auror," said Harry firmly.

"Well, Potter, as you know, this demands very high grades of you --"

She went on for what seemed like hours, going over the fine ("I doubt there is any chance your Defense Against the Dark Arts test scores are going to hurt you") and the less fine ("But your Potions scores are less than acceptable, I'm afraid") points of Auror training.

"I could make a Potion if Snape wasn't breathing down my neck!" Harry cried.

"Professor Snape," she told him pointedly, one beady eye from behind her glasses staring fixedly into his own. "But Professor Figg tells me have been doing quite well these past two terms. The Ministry, of course, will except no less than near perfect, so mind you keep up your good work. I should tell you I requested a note from all of your teachers on your progress thus far and they all tell me you have been doing exceptionally well since -- as of late."

She had hesitated. For a moment, it looked like she was going to say "since Sirius died." But, her face having gone oddly slack, she was now staring at him as though she was his mother. This gave Harry a strange foreboding feeling. He glanced at Raides, who Harry agreed to let follow him around again. Her golden face was quite expressionless.

"It keeps my mind off other things," said Harry miserably.

He thought he saw, for a flicker of a moment, her smiling at him. This increased the foreboding.

"Potter, I get the feeling you don't think you have what it takes to become an Auror."

She paused. Before she could continue, Harry cut in with, "Yes, and --"

But she cut him off with, "And let me first tell you all the rest of the requirements you must meet." Her voice became monotone, as though she didn't much care for the list. "Top OWLs in I'm sure you know which subjects. Top NEWTs in the very same subjects, of course. The Ministry will be doing a background check on you." The corner of her mouth curled. "They will also do a psychological test of you" -- she was looking really funny -- "and review your criminal record" -- now she was almost grinning.

Harry couldn't see what was so funny but he tried to supress yelling at her, lest her good mood about his career choice go down the drain like he saw Professor Figg do to his Cleaning Solution as he left the classroom. He had distinctly heard her mutter, "Honestly, Harry..."

"You don't have to say anything, Potter, I know you're angry with me right now," said Professor McGonagall, rather bluntly in Harry's opinion. He took this as his cue to start talking.

"What is so funny?"

"Your Potions scores, except for this year, are quite abysmal. You are not performing up to the level of acceptance the Ministry will expect of your NEWTs for Transfiguration. You do have quite a nice criminal record -- quiet, Potter -- and I daresay Mr. Fudge thinks you're unhinged. And no one, to be honest, has been accepted as an Auror these past few years, I must say."

Harry was quite aware of his face falling.

"I just -- I just wanted -- I want to do something."

"I know --"

But before she finished her sentence, what he had been feeling for a long time came pouring out of him.

"I feel like a sitting salamander, a sheltered kid at school. 'All the adults will do it for you, Harry! Don't worry!'" Quite suddenly, there was anger rising up inside him again. "I don't get it. Why do I have to sit in here while everyone else from the Order is out there fighting!"

"Potter --"

"NO!" he shouted. But both her eyes met his and the shouting drained out of him. He went back to talking a little loudly. Professor McGonagall didn't seem intent on stopping him very badly, but she didn't seem to want to give him very much consolation, either. He found his voice was shaking as he spoke again. "Snape and Lupin are out there doing whatever! Sirius was out there doing who else knows what and he died, Professor, died! At least he was doing something useful! Here, I'm stuck at school under who knows what spell, cursed with having this dark staff with me wherever I go" -- Raides didn't look offended at all. "I just -- I give up! The only one I could ever call family is dead and do you know what he was going to do after Voldemort -- quiet, Professor -- died? He was going to adopt me, so I could finally have a dad." His voice was shaking its worst yet on these last few words. Slouching back in his seat, Harry was holding his forehead with one hand, which had begun to burn dully. "And this stupid scar," he added, kicking the legs of Professor McGonagall's desk irritably.

"You have to admit, Professor, he's got heart," said Raides.

"You do realize that you have had more experience with the Dark Arts than any other student who has passed through this school since Professor Snape?" Harry gaped at her but then he found himself again.

"And how is that going to help? I suck at Transfiguration and Potions, remember?" he burst out.

"I'm being serious with you Potter, when I say this, just as you were with me a minute ago. You certainly have the makings of the career. Have you never wondered why you had always managed to escape You-Know-Who?" Professor McGonagall asked exasperatedly. "Your first year, Potter, you escaped quite a frightening situation, if I do say so myself. Your second year you experienced something I'm sure no one else your age would have gotten out clean from. And please, I thought my respect for you peaked during your fourth but every year you seem to keep topping yourself."

"That was just luck!" Harry shouted, going rather red. "If I hadn't had any help --"

"If you don't become an Auror, Nymphadora Tonks told me she would resign in protest," said Professor McGonagall, now outright smiling at him.

"Who?"

"A very nice Auror at the Ministry. Wears interesting socks. Got exceptionally high grades in Stealth training..."

"Harry?"

"WHAT?"

Lavender, who had snuck up behind Harry while he was writing an essay for Professor Sinistra about the positions of Mars and Venus in the Gryffindor common room, cowered away. There was the sound of a crashing ink bottle and the inevitable groan.

"Harry, maybe you should stop yelling at people," came Hermione's voice.

"Hermione, maybe you should take your quill and --"

"She just wanted to tell you something," came the voice of Parvati, who then appeared in front of him.

Parvati and Lavender seemed to have been following Harry around corners a lot lately. Word had spread about his wish to become an Auror, though he didn't remember telling anyone anything about his session with Professor McGonagall. He wondered briefly if this had anything to do with what they wanted to talk with him about.

"It's just -- Harry -- well --" Parvati tried to say.

"What is it, then?" asked Harry angrily.

Lavender spoke very quickly, as though it wouldn't make Harry snap at her if she said it fast enough.

"It's just that we saw stuff up in Professor Trelawney's classroom after dinner and we wanted to tell you."

Harry felt like laughing but he was saved the effort by Hermione, who stopped pretending to be busy and as if she wasn't listening.

"Oh please," she said loftily, "if you have ever found out anything worth telling up there, I'll eat Crookshanks!"

On cue, Crookshanks came out from under Harry's chair (he'd been snapping his leg at the cat) and curled up around her feet, his bottlebrush tail resting on them, which were sock-less. At Hermione's words, Parvati and Lavender both looked seriously at each other.

"Well, we were doing runes and -- and looking into more tea leaves and a crystal ball and -- oh, Harry!" cried Lavender, wiping away a tear from her eye, as Parvati wept silently at her side, "we saw you being taken off into Azkaban!"

Harry put his quill down, straightened his glasses, and looked up at her nonchalantly. Both of them were now looking at him.

"Really," he said, totally disinterested. He did take notice of the fresh tear sliding down her face. Hermione, on the other hand, made a noise of dissent while Ron was still pretending to be working. But while his quill was going, he seemed to have forgotten that it was no longer making any words; there was no more ink left on it (each word from the last paragraph was lighter and lighter until the words "dust cloud" faded into nothingness).

Parvati then nudged Lavender in the side, who went on.

"We saw that Sirius would get killed!" said Lavender. "And we saw a bunch of Runes, and they included Teiwaz" -- Hermione immediately put aside her Astronomy homework and pulled her Ancient Runes textbook out; Lavender was eyeing her -- "and -- Harry, please, you have to believe us. We know you think Divination is a bunch of rubbish, but we saw you dying in Azkaban!" said Lavender desperately.

"It says right here, Lavender, that Teiwaz means you'll have to overcome your fears, that you can't lose faith, and you will find your full potential."

"What a load of --" Ron bursted out.

"And do you know what that means, Hermione?" asked Lavender timidly, who seemed to be quelling under Harry's stare.

"It's a bunch of rubbish is what it means. Divination is the most worthless --" Before Hermione could finish her sentence, Parvati ran from the room, her face in her hands, and up the girls' dormitory staircase. This seemed to cause a change of heart in Hermione. "Well if she's that upset over it, maybe she should have picked a different subject," said Hermione as though Parvati had overreacted only just a little bit, and stared after her.

This also caused a change of heart in Harry. Could it be real if it was causing Parvati to get that upset? Or was Parvati just letting her own fears get the best of her? Without enough time to finish his thoughts, Ginny spoke.

"Harry, come on. Haven't you ever predicted anything before? And," she said quietly, and then more loudly, "and Fred and George!" Ginny's face positively lit up. "Hey, don't you remember what they did during the Quidditch World Cup? They told Ludo Bagman that Ireland would win but Krum would get the Snitch!"

"Yeah, so?" said Hermione. She was still staring where Parvati's foot had been before it disappeared behind the wall and up the stairs.

Ginny was looking exasperated, staring at the back of Hermione's bushy brown hair.

"Give me a break, how could anyone have just guessed that!"

Ron laughed and his quill fell out of his hands.

"Are you trying to tell me Fred and George are true Seers? Get real!"

But Harry didn't see it that way.

"Ron," he said, looking at him, "you remember our first bit of homework that same year?"

"Yeah, we made up a bunch of stuff for Professor Trelawney," Ron replied. Hermione folded her arms and, having finally stopping looking at the stairs, turned to Lavender.

"It's a miracle you passed that year!" said Hermione, forgetting about Parvati in an instant.

"But did you make it up," said Ginny suggestively, "really, just make it up?"

"Of course we did!" said Ron, laughing as though Ginny was mad.

"No," said Harry slowly, shaking his head as a distant memory from six years ago came to him. "No. It doesn't fit."

"No, what?"

"Six years ago I saw Gryffindor winning the House cup," said Harry to a stunned audience.

"You're joking."

"Very funny joke, Harry."

"That was the year Gryffindor was down by, what, one hundred and fifty points? Who could've predicted that Dumbledore would have given us the extra House points we needed!"

"Who could have predicted the outcome of that year's Qudditch World Cup, Ron?" said Ginny.

Hermione was starting to look slightly panicky in Harry's opinion.

"But, it's not true, isn't it?"

"It's happened more times, Hermione," said Harry, trying to remember.

"Has it? Tell me, then," Hermione demanded.

The tiniest voice belonging to Lavender said, "It's true."

"Non-sense!" said Hermione, as though this settled the argument.

"I don't believe a word of this," said Ron defiantly.

"Do me a favor, though, Ron, will you?"

"Er, okay?"

"Just -- just send a letter to Fred and George asking them."

"There, that'll settle it, then," said Hermione. "As soon as they say no, we can get on with our lives. Harry, promise me you won't believe a word of this until they reply? Because it is nonsense, you know that."

"Okay..."

"Right," said Ron.

It wasn't until three days later, when Parvati still wasn't speaking to either Harry, Ron or Hermione, skirting them in the hallways, that the letter from Fred and George arrived. Hedwig soared into the late-evening library window, much to the dismay of Madam Pince, and landed just short of Harry's ink bottle. She considered it for a moment, until her attention was diverted by Harry removing her letter.

Hermione and Ron, who were sitting at the table behind Harry, simultaneously peered over his shoulder to read the name of the sender.

"Took them long enough to reply," said Ron.

"Just read it, Harry," said Hermione huffily.

Before he'd even finished opening the envelope, Hermione and Ron both got up from their seats and sat opposite Harry. As they read upside down, he read it quietly to himself.

Our good brother Ron,  
So you finally figured it out.

These things skip a few generations, as we're sure Professor Trelawney covered in your fifth year. Mum and dad didn't have it but our great, great grandfather, who we only found out about by looking through history books, was a lesser well-known Seer. Since we're the fourth generation since good old Marion, it's been passed down to us.

Don't try to force something out of yourself, though. We were just lucky to take the old crystal ball out and see what the outcome of the World Cup that year was. Fred decided we should at least try, so there you are. No more mystery, ickle Ron.

Love,  
Gred and Forge.

Harry put the letter down but before it could touch the table, Ron snatched it out of his hands, not caring that a small portion of the parchment got ripped.

"No way," Ron gasped.

Harry himself hadn't decided yet if he had decided whether it was good or bad. So he could see into the future. Big deal. Though suddenly he felt very self-conscious about his glasses and was glad he had gone for the smaller ones all those years ago. Also quite suddenly, a twinge of fear gripped him. What else had he predicted that was going to come true? This must have shown on his face, because Hermione called his name. By the look on her face, she seemed to be thinking along these lines.

Hours later, he still hadn't answered her. It was all set, then. He was going to end up dead in a cell in Azkaban, and as he lay, still fully dressed, staring up at the canopy of his four-post bed (which he so often did lately), he tried to make sense out of everything. Harry wanted to punch the canopy, but his arm wouldn't reach. He felt small, insignificant, and powerless. Who had decided that, after all he'd been through, it would all end in a few months' time? Gripping the Order of Merlin necklace, he wasn't surprised to see that it did nothing.

But part of him didn't want to give up. Dumbledore, the one person that seemed to give him more sound advice than anybody apart from Sirius or Lupin, came to his mind.

"Hasn't your experience with the Time-Turner taught you anything, Harry? The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed... Professor Trelawney, bless her, is living proof of that... "

And as quickly as the sense of dread seemed to settle inside of him, the fog in his head was lifting. Then he wasn't going to die in a cell at Azkaban. Or was he? The dream he remembered having that night, of him in a cell, with one dementor having Lavender's face, telling him he should have believed her, was the one he woke up with a start from. Luckily, no one else had woken up.

But in any case, Harry spent the next few days talking very little, telling teachers he didn't know the answer to any questions when he really did, saying the right mix of words, "Yeah," "Okay," and the ever elusive, "Fine," when appropriate.

Harry wasn't sure what to think, staring at his Divination homework, his glazed eyes roaming all over the pages in his textbook, yet not taking in a word about experimental Divination.

"Harry!" said Hermione's voice from behind him. "How many times do we have to go over this!"

"Go over what?"

"Yeah," said Ron's, "and how much time are you going to spend moping this year? I think you've topped last year."

"You are so insensitive, Ron!" snapped Hermione. "You --"

"And you two arguing isn't going to help any," said Harry heavily.

"He speaks!" said Ginny's voice from somewhere else in the emptying common room.

"Hi, Ginny..."

"So are you still on about Fred and George's letter?"

"So, what, does the whole school know?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Ron informed Harry.

"Kind of hard to hide something new when you all of a sudden start acting differently, mate," said Ron.

"Differently different than usual, you mean?" asked Ginny.

"Er -- yeah..."

"You two sound like you don't care," said Harry, scribbling out a bad doodle of a crystal ball between "Harry" and "Potter" at the top of his essay. He then threw the essay into the fire beside him, because two words weren't going to make Professor Trelawney give him any points.

"You can't keep thinking about it, Harry. It'll make a nutter out of you," said Ginny.

"I'm already a nutter. What if I want to be more of one?"

"So you're going to die in a cell in Azkaban," said Hermione, very much without thinking in Harry's opinion.

"Hermione, think what you're saying," said Lavender, relieving Harry of the trouble of doing so himself. She seemed to be hanging around him more than usual as of late. "Just give it a rest. That's the sort of thing Ron would say," she finished irritably. Ron didn't look offended.

"But Ron's not saying that," said Ron. "Ron's saying -- Ron's talking in the third person -- all I want you to know, Harry, is that -- that --"

"What the dope is trying to say, Harry," Ginny cut in, "is that we've been there." For a flash of a moment, Harry wanted to stab her with the quill in his hand. "Okay, so no one's predicted any of our deaths, but our dad died, and that's as good as killing us! We've got no money left. We're not sure Fred and George's joke shop can pull enough in. Mom's not working. Bill and Charlie both have houses they need to pay bills for, too. We're going to end up living in the streets not before long!"

"But you're not going to die hearing your parents' last words before they were killed, are you?" Harry put his quill down and slouched in his armchair. He applauded Ginny for making the attempt, as bad as it was. "It's just, all my life I've experienced so much... At some point, I just -- I just want to stop feeling."

It wasn't long before he felt the familiar feeling of someone putting their arms around him from his back. Ginny's voice was close to his ear. Maybe it was just the fact that someone was holding him again, maybe it was because it reminded him of Cho, or maybe it was just reminding him that someone cared, but all his anger at Ginny ebbed away.

"Harry, but you still can. And I don't know how Voldemort can keep on living and killing people and not feeling bad at all. I don't think he's human. But, after all of it, you still can. In the end, you still are human."

In the end...

"Let's just go to dinner."

Ceasing their arguement, they made for the portrait hole. Hermione pushed it open. Quite apart from their unceasing words to Harry, the hallway in which the Fat Lady opened up into was very quiet.

"More quiet than usual, it seems," Hermione commented, to which Ron added, "The Fat Lady, where has she got to?"

"What?"

Harry turned around. The Fat Lady was gone. And then, for the second time in his life, he heard Professor McGonagall's voice magically magnified throughout the school. In the split second between the first word ("all") and the second ("students"), Harry recalled the only other time she had done this. It was followed by the worst news Harry thought he would ever hear: Hogwarts could be closing.

"All students please return to their dormitories immediately," said her urgent voice. Here Professor McGonagall was heard blowing her nose. "Your head of House will explain."

"Oh, this can't be good," said Hermione.

And they did an about-face into the open portrait hole. Harry noticed that the Fat Lady seemed to have left her portrait in a hurry: her glass had spilled. This must be important, he thought to himself.

No sooner had they closed the portrait hole again than Professor McGonagall could be heard saying, "Why are you closing it? I'm right behind you. Thank you, Miss Brown." Professor McGonagall was dressed in sad green robes and her spectacles were lop-sided. She didn't seem to notice. "Wait until everbody is here and I will explain."

"What is it, Professor?" Hermione asked, while Professor McGonagall patted her eyes with a tissue. Harry found this none too comforting.

She didn't answer until all the Gryffindors were accounted for. When they were, she asked everyone to take a seat and to make sure they were comfortable while she herself looked the opposite though it wasn't for lack of trying -- she just looked very uneasy. Hesitating for a few moments, she then said, "Oh, I don't know how to say this so I'll just say it: Headmaster Dumbledore has been found dead."

Harry was well aware that he didn't have an immediate reaction. Instead, he let other students do it for him, trying hard to ignore the number of Gryffindors giving him accusing stares. He felt like denying it, but didn't think it would do any good.

"Dead?"

"How?"

"Who?"

"Oh!"

"Very funny, Professor!"

"How can she be lying!" said Hermione in a very distressed voice, and then adding, "How could Harry have done it!"

"I don't know myself, Miss Granger," said Professor McGonagall, "but as soon as you're up to it, Potter, I need to speak with you."

Harry felt the all too familiar chill running up his back. She was going to take him into her office. He was going to speak with Cornelius Fudge. Someone was going to be somewhat nice and give him a trial. And then he was going to get sent to Azkaban.

Before he knew where she got to, the portrait hole was closing and people were filing up the stairs, either because they were afraid of being killed by Harry or they, like Harry, wanted time alone.

"Harry?"

"What, Hermione?"

"We'll go with you. It'll be all right."

"Right," said Harry, clenching his fists. He was as ready now as he felt he'd ever be to face the Minister of Magic. He felt both angry and scared. They were going to send him to his death one way or another. The anger overtaking the fear, he jammed a fist right through the seat beneath him, putting a hole in it. He looked back at Ron and Hermione who both quickly looked away. "Let's go," he said stiffly.

Hermione jumped in front of him and pushed the portrait hole open. As it closed, Harry kicked Raides who had followed him out of the common room. Rising a foot or so in the air, she let out a very unconvincing "ouch." Following that, he did something he had never known himself to do before: he screamed out in pure anger. Ron and Hermione jumped back, as though Harry had killed Dumbledore in front of them.

"Harry, you're not this angry," said Hermione in a very small voice and then, in a little bigger one, "What are you so angry about?"

Harry rounded on her like a wrathful eagle. He knew what it was he was feeling again but was wishing it wasn't true.

"What am I so angry about?" he yelled so close to her face he could feel her scared breath. "We've been through this a thousand times. I'm having mood swings just like I was two years ago! I have every right to be angry! And it's just as well. I don't have the Mark of Ancients. How can I? It was removed. Does anyone know -- anyone have any damn idea what causes the moodswings? Or am I just going to have this until my dying day? And at the rate things are going, that better come soon because with two deaths... Great, now I'm rambling to myself. At least I'm in a hard mood because if I wasn't, I think I'd be on the floor crying."

To make matters worse, he felt the anger leave him and the fear take over. Without stopping her, he let Hermione walk him over to the nearest wall and he felt himself slide down it. Did she know he was going to change moods like that? Or did she just make a really good guess?

"Harry, it's going to be all right. It's gonna be okay," she said soothingly.

"You keep saying that!" said Harry, burying his head in his arms, which were wrapped around his knees. "He killed Dumbledore, he killed Sirius," Harry cried, tears pouring down his face at this point. "What's to stop -- him from killing me?"

For a moment he picked his head up and looked opposite the Fat Lady's portrait -- she was still gone. Silhouetted at the far end of the corridor was Professor McGonagall. He could feel her eyes on him. He wanted to master himself but the necklace didn't work. Within seconds, Professor McGonagall was leaning against the wall opposite him, kindly peering down her glasses at him. She first sighed and then spoke.

"I think the formalities are past us at this point, Harry," she said, for the first time calling him by his first name in a you're-no-longer-my-student kind of tone. 


End file.
